The Heart Line: A Drama of San Francisco
by unknown · English · Gutenberg #48984 · 899,125 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Heart Line: A Drama of San Francisco
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: The Heart Line: A Drama of San Francisco
Creator: Gelett Burgess
Illustrator: Lester Ralph
Release date: May 17, 2015 [eBook #48984]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48984
Credits: Produced by Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HEART LINE: A DRAMA OF SAN FRANCISCO ***
Produced by Al Haines.
[Illustration: Cover art]
[Illustration: He took her hand, testing its quality and texture Page
52]
*THE HEART LINE*
_A DRAMA OF SAN FRANCISCO_
_By_
GELETT BURGESS
Author of
The White Cat, Vivette
A Little Sister of Destiny, etc.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
LESTER RALPH
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT 1907
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
OCTOBER
TO MAYSIE
WHO KNEW THE PEOPLE
AND
LOVED THE PLACE
IN MEMORY OF
THE CITY THAT WAS
*CONTENTS*
CHAPTER
Prologue
I The Palmist and Fancy Gray
II Tuition and Intuition
III The Spider's Nest
IV The Paysons
V The Rise and Fall of Gay P. Summer
VI Side Lights
VII The Weaving of the Web
VIII Illumination
IX Coming On
X A Look Into the Mirror
XI The First Turning to the Left
XII The First Turning to the Right
XIII The Bloodsucker
XIV The Fore-Honeymoon
XV The Re-Entrant Angle
XVI Tit for Tat
XVII The Materializing Seance
XVIII A Return to Instinct
XIX Fancy Gray Accepts
XX Masterson's Manoeuvers
XXI The Sunrise
Epilogue
*THE HEART LINE*
*PROLOGUE*
In the year 1877 the Siskiyou House, originally a third-class hotel
patronized chiefly by mining men, had fallen into such disrepute that it
was scarcely more than a cheap tenement. Its office was now frankly a
bar-room; beside it, a narrow hallway plunged into the shabby, shadowy
interior; here a steep stairway rose. Above were disconsolate rooms
known to the police of San Francisco as the occasional resort of
counterfeiters, confidence workers and lesser knaves; to the
neighborhood the Siskiyou Hotel had a local reputation as being the home
of Madam Grant, who occupied two rooms on the second floor.
Her rooms were slovenly and squalid--almost barbarous in the extremity
of their neglect. Upon the floor was a matted carpet of dirt and
rubbish inches deep, piled higher at the corners, uneven with lumps of
refuse, bizarre with scraps of paper, cloth and tangled strings.
In the rear room an unclean length of burlap was stretched across a
string, half concealing a disordered, ramshackle cot, whose coverings
were ragged, soiled and moth-eaten. A broken chair or two leaned
crazily against the wall. The dusty windows looked point-blank upon the
damp wall of an abutting wooden house. There had once been paper upon
the walls; it was now torn, scratched and rubbed by grimy shoulders into
a harlequin pattern of dun and greasy tones.
The front room, through the open rolling doors, was, if possible, in a
still worse state of decay, and here wooden and paper boxes, tin cans,
sacks of rags (doing service for cushions), a three-legged table and a
smoked, rusty oil-stove, with its complement of unclean pots and dishes,
showed the place, abominable as was its aspect, to be a human abode. A
print or two, torn from some newspaper or magazine, was pinned to the
wall in protest against the sordidness of the interior. The place gave
forth a fetid and moldy smell. The air was damp, though the sun
struggled in through cracked panes, half lighting the apartment.
There was, however, one piece of furniture, glossily, splendidly new,
incongruously set amidst the disorder--an oak bookcase, its shelves well
filled with volumes. Seated upon a cracker box in front of its open
doors, this afternoon, a boy of eight years sat reading with rapt
excitement the story of _Gulliver's Travels_.
He, too, seemed strangely set in that environment, for he was clean and
sweet in person and dress. His hair was black and waving, his eyes deep
blue, clear and shrewd. His cheeks were pink and gently dimpled, his
mouth ample, firm and well-cut, over a square, deeply cleft chin. He
was patently a handsome child, virile, graceful, determined in his pose.
His natural charm was made more picturesque by a blue flannel suit, with
white collar, cuffs and stockings. Oblivious to his extraordinary
surroundings, he read on until he had finished the book.
He rose then, yawned and walked to the window in the front room to look
out upon the street. Opposite was a row of low buildings--a stable, a
Chinese laundry, two dreary rooming-houses and a saloon. The roof-line
of the block, where the false wooden fronts, met the sky, held his gaze
for a few moments. A horse-car lumbered lazily past, and his eyes fell
to the cobble-paved thoroughfare and its passers-by. To the left,
Market Street roared bustling a block away and the throngs swept up and
down. To the right, a little passage starting from two saloons, one on
each corner of the street, penetrated the slums. The warm, mellow
California sunlight bathed the whole scene, picking out, here and there,
high lights on window-glass that shot forth blinding sparks and flashes.
The boy yawned again, his hands in his pockets, then turned to the sooty
oil stove and peered rather disgustedly amongst the frying-pans, tins
and pasteboard boxes. There was nothing in the way of food to be found.
He sniffed fastidiously at the corrupt odor of cooking, then knelt upon
the floor and began a search, crawling gingerly on hands and knees. The
ends of three matches projected slightly above the surface of the matted
layers of rubbish. Here he scraped the dirt away with a case-knife and
came upon a little paper-wrapped parcel which, opened, disclosed three
bright twenty-five-cent pieces. He wrapped them up again, tucked them
into the hole in the dirt and went on with his quest.
His next find, a foot or so from the base-board of the double doors, was
a _cache_ containing a pearl-handled pen-knife. He put it back. Here
and there in the subsoil he came upon other treasure trove, each article
carefully wrapped in paper or bits of rag--a jet ear-ring, a folded
calendar, a silver chain, two watches, a dozen screw-eyes, several
five-dollar gold pieces, a roll of corset laces. He returned them one
by one as he found them, and smoothed the dirt over the place.
He had nearly exhausted the field in the front room, when he came upon a
small paper bag containing a few macaroons. These he sat down to eat,
first brushing off feathery bits of green mold. He discovered another
bag containing peanuts. He chewed them slowly, throwing the shells upon
the floor, his eyes wandering, his air abstracted.
Leading off the front room was a smaller one whose door was shut. He
opened it now, and went in somewhat fearfully. Here was another cot
drawn up in front of the window, and, upon nails driven in the wall,
women's hats and dresses. Upon the inside of the door was pinned a
stained, yellowing newspaper cut--the portrait of a man perhaps thirty
years old, with mustache and side-whiskers and a wide flowing collar.
Beneath it was printed the name, "Oliver Payson." The boy gazed at it
curiously for some moments.
From this, he turned to a corner where stood an old trunk covered with
cowhide whose hair was rubbed off in mangy spots. Corroded brass-headed
nails held a rotting, pinked flap of red leather about the edge of the
cover. On the top of the trunk, also in brass-headed nails, were the
letters "F.G."
He stooped over and tried the lid. The trunk was locked. He lifted it,
testing its weight, and found it too heavy to be budged. He rubbed the
hair with his hand, played with the handles and fingered the lock
longingly; then, after a last look, he left the room and closed the
door.
He had gone back to the bookcase and taken down a volume of Montaigne's
_Essays_, when he heard a knock on the door of the back room leading
into the hallway. He unlocked the door, opened it a few inches and
stood guarding the entrance.
A woman of middle age in a black bonnet, shawl and gown attempted to
pass him. He stood stiffly in her way, regarding her harsh, sour
visage, thin, cruel lips and pale, humid, bluish eyes. At his resolute
defense her attitude weakened.
"Ain't Madam Grant to home?" she said.
"No, she is not. What do you want?"
"Oh, I just wanted to see her; you let me come in and wait a
while--she'll be back soon, I s'pose?"
"She doesn't allow me to let anybody in when she's away," the boy
protested.
"Oh, that's all right, Frankie; I'm a particular friend of hers. I'll
just come in and make myself to home till she comes in. I'm all winded
comin' up them steep stairs, and I've got to set down."
"I'm sorry," the boy said more politely, "but I mustn't let you in. I
did let a lady in once, and Mamsy scolded me for it. The next day we
missed a watch, too."
"My sakes! Does she keep her watches in the dirt on the floor, too?"
the woman said, her eyes sparkling with curiosity. "You needn't worry
about me, my dear; everybody knows me, and trusts me, too. Besides, my
business is important and I've just _got_ to see the Madam, sure."
"You may wait on the stairs, if you like, but you can't come in here.
She says that the neighbors are altogether too curious." The remark was
made deliberately, as if to aid his defense by its rudeness. But the
woman's skin was tough.
"You're a pert one, you be!" she sniffed. "I'd like to know what you do
here all day, anyway. You ought to be to school! We'll have to look
after you, young man; they's societies that makes a business of seeing
to children that's neglected like you, and takes 'em away where they can
be taught an education and live decent."
The boy's face changed to dismay. The tears came into his eyes. "I
don't _want_ to go away, I want to live here, and I'm going to, too!
Besides, I can read and write already, and I learn more things than you
can learn at school. I'd just like to see them take me away!"
"What do you learn, now?" said the woman insinuatingly. "Do you learn
how to tell fortunes? Can you tell mine, now? I'll give you a nickel
if you will!"
"I don't want a nickel. I've got all the money I want!"
"Oh, you have, have you? How much have you got? Say, I hear the
Madam's pretty well fixed. How much do you s'pose she's worth, now?"
"You can't work me that way."
She put forth a shaky hand to stroke his dark hair, and he warded her
off. "Nor that way either!" he said, beginning to grow angry.
"Say, sonny, do you ever see the spirits here?" she began again.
"No, but I can smell 'em now," he replied.
She burst out into a cackle of laughter. "Say, that's pretty good!
You're a likely little feller, you be. I didn't mean no harm, noways."
"You mean that you didn't mean any harm, don't you?" he asked soberly.
"No, I don't mean no harm, sure I don't! What d'you mean?"
"She says one shouldn't use double negatives."
"What's them, then?"
"I mean you don't use good English," said the boy.
"I don't talk English? What do I talk then--Dutch? What's the matter
with you?"
"Oh, I'm just studying grammar, that's all. Now you see I don't need to
go to school, the way you said. Mamsy teaches me every night."
"Oh, she does, does she? Well, well! I hear she has a fine education;
some say she's went to college, even."
"Yes, she has. She went to a woman's college in the East, once."
"Then what's she living in this pigsty for, I'd like to know! It beats
all, this room does. Let me come in for a moment and just look round a
bit, will you? I won't touch nothing at all, sure."
The boy protested, and it might have come to a physical struggle had not
footsteps been heard coming up the narrow stairway. The visitor peered
over the railing of the balusters.
"That's her!" she whispered hoarsely.
A head, rising, looked between the balusters, like a wild animal gazing
through the bars of its cage. It was the head of a woman of twenty-seven
or eight, and though her face had a strange, wild expression, with
staring eyes, she was, or had undoubtedly been, a lady. Her hair,
prematurely gray, was parted in the center and brought down in waves
over her ears. Her eyebrows, in vivid contrast, were black; and between
them a single vertical line cleft her forehead. What might have been a
rare beauty was now distorted into something fantastic and mysterious,
though when at rare intervals she smiled, a veil seemed to be drawn
aside and she became an engaging, familiar, warm-hearted woman. She was
dressed in a brilliant red gown and dolman of mosaic cloth with a
Tyrolean hat of the period. Such striking color was, thirty years ago,
uncommon upon the streets, but, even had it been more usual, the
severity of her costume with neither a bustle nor the elaborate ruffles
and trimmings then in vogue, would have made her conspicuous.
She came up, with a white face, gasping for breath after her climb, one
hand to her heart. For a moment she seemed unable to speak. Then
suddenly and sharply she said:
"Francis, shut the door!"
The boy obeyed, coming out into the hall, with a hand still holding the
knob.
"The lady wanted me to let her in, but I wouldn't do it, Mamsy," he
said.
Madam Grant turned her eyes upon the apologetic, cringing figure, whose
thin, skinny fingers plucked at her shawl.
"I just called neighborly like, thinkin' maybe you'd give me a settin',
Madam Grant," she said.
Madam Grant had come nearer, now, and stood gazing at her visitor. The
expression of scorn had faded from her face, her eyes glazed. She spoke
slowly in a deliberate monotone.
"Your name is Margaret Riley."
The woman nodded. Her lips had fallen open, and her eyes were fixed in
awe.
"Who are the three men I see beside you?" demanded Madam Grant.
"They was only two! I swear to God they was only two!"
"There is a little child, too."
"For the love of Heaven!" Mrs. Riley moaned. "Send 'em away, send 'em
away, tell 'em to leave me be!"
Madam Grant's eyes brightened a little, and her color returned.
"Come in the room and I will see what I can do for you."
The three entered, Mrs. Riley, half terrified but curious, darting her
eyes about the apartment, sniffing at the foul odor, her furtive glances
returning ever to the mad woman. Francis went to the bookcase and
resumed his reading without manifesting further interest in the visitor.
Madam Grant seated herself upon a wooden box covered with sacking and
untied the strings of her hat.
"What do you want to know?" she asked sharply.
"I got three tickets in the lottery, and I want to know which one to
keep," Mrs. Riley ventured, somewhat shamefaced.
Madam Grant gave a fierce gesture, and the line between her brows grew
deeper. "I'll answer such questions for nobody! That's the devil's
work, not mine. How did your three husbands die, Margaret Riley?"
The woman held up her hands in protest. "Two, only two!" she cried;
"and they died in their beds regular enough. God knows I wore my
fingers out for 'em, too!"
"They died suddenly," Madam Grant replied impassively. "Who's the other
one with the smooth face--the one who limps?"
Mrs. Riley coughed into her hands nervously. "It might be my brother."
"It is not your brother. You know who it is, Mrs. Riley; and he tells
me that you must give back the papers."
"Oh, I'll give 'em back; I was always meanin' to give 'em back, God
knows I was! I'll do it this week."
"In a week it will be too late."
"I'll do it to-morrow."
"You'll do it to-day, Mrs. Riley."
"I will, oh, I will!"
"Now, if you want a sitting, I'll give you one," Madam Grant continued.
"That is, if I can get Weenie. I can't promise anything. She comes and
she goes like the sun in spring."
"Never mind," said Mrs. Riley, rising abruptly. "I think I'll be going,
after all." She started toward the door.
The clairvoyant's face had set again in a vacant, far-away expression
and her voice fell to the same dead tone she had used before. She
clutched her throat suddenly.
"He's in the water--he's drowning--he's passing out now--he's gone! You
are responsible, you! you! You drove him to it with your false tongue
and your crafty hands. But you'll regret it. You'll pay for it in
misery and pain, Margaret Riley. Your old age will be miserable.
You'll escape shame to suffer torment!"
Mrs. Riley's face, haggard and terrified, was working convulsively.
Without taking her eyes from the medium, she ran into the front room and
shook the boy's shoulder.
"Wake her up, Frankie, I don't want no more of this! Wake her up, dear,
and let me go!"
Francis arose lazily and walked over to Madam Grant. He put his arm
tenderly about her and whispered in her ear.
"Come back, Mamsy dear! Come back, Mamsy, I want you!" He began
stroking her hands firmly.
Mrs. Riley, still gazing, fascinated, at the group, backed out of the
room and closed the door. Her steps were heard stumbling down the
stairs. Madam Grant's eyes quivered and opened slowly. She shuddered,
then shook the blood back into her thin, white hands. Finally she
looked up at Francis and smiled. "All right, dear!"
Her smile, however, lasted but for the few moments during which he
caressed her; then the veil fell upon her countenance, and her eyes grew
strange and hard. She gazed wildly here and there about the room.
"What's that in Boston?" she asked suddenly, the pitch of her voice
sharply raised, as she pointed to the shells upon the rubbish of the
floor.
"Only some peanuts I was eating, Mamsy," said the boy, guiltily watching
her.
"Somebody has been in Toledo, somebody has been in New York! I can see
the smoke of the trains!" Her eyes traveled around an invisible path,
from mound to mound of dirt and scraps, noticing the slight
displacements the boy had made in his quest for food. He watched her
sharply, but without fear.
"Oh, the train didn't stop, Mamsy; they were express trains, you know."
"Don't tell me, don't tell me!"
She pointed with her slender forefinger here and there. "New Orleans is
safe; New Orleans is always a safe, strait-laced old town; but the place
isn't what it was! They've left the French quarter now to the Creoles,
but I know a place on Royal Street where the gallery whispers--O God!
that gallery with the magnolia trees--and the leper girl across the
street in the end room!" Her voice had sunk to a harsh whisper; now it
rose again. "Chicago--all right. I wouldn't care if it weren't.
Baltimore--_he_ never was in Baltimore. But what's the matter with
Denver? Somebody's been to Denver!" She turned her gaze point-blank
upon Francis.
He met it fairly.
"Oh, no, Mamsy, nobody ever goes to Denver, Mamsy dear!"
She knelt down and groped tentatively, sensitively, across the layer of
dust that sloped toward the corner, by the bay-window. She turned,
still on all-fours, to shake her finger at him, and say solemnly: "Don't
ever go to Denver, Francis! Denver's a bad place, a very wicked place.
They gamble in Denver, they gamble yellow money away." She arose,
apparently either satisfied or diverted in her quest, to turn her back
to the boy and look inside the bag she had been holding.
"Go outside, Francis!" she commanded, after fumbling with its contents.
He walked to the door and passed into the hall. Here he waited,
listening listlessly, drumming softly upon the railing. The room was
silent for a while; then he heard a muffled pounding, as of one stamping
down the surface of the matted dirt. At last she called him and he went
in again. Madam Grant's face was placid and kind.
She proceeded to occupy herself busily at the little oil stove, putting
into the greasy frying-pan some chops which she had brought home with
her. The spluttering and the pungent odor of the frying fat soon filled
the two rooms. She cut a few slices from a loaf of stale bread, and set
the meager repast forth upon the top of a wooden box.
"Come and have dinner, Francis!" she said, with a sweet look at him.
That the boy was far older than his years was evident by the way he
watched her and took his cue from her, humoring her in her madder
moments, restraining her in her moods of mystic exaltation, pathetically
affectionate during her lucid intervals. She was in this last phase now,
and from time to time, in the course of their meal, his hand stole to
hers. Its pressure was softly returned.
"What have you read to-day?"
"I finished _Gulliver_."
"What did you think of it?"
"Why, somehow, it seemed just like it might be true."
"_As if_ it might be true, Francis--what did I tell you?" Her tone grew
severe, almost pedagogic. "You must be careful of your talk, my boy!
Never forget; it is important. You'll never get on if you're careless
and common. You will often be judged by your speech. What else did you
read?"
"I tried Montaigne's _Essays_, but I couldn't understand much. It
seemed so dull to me. But there's one, _Whether the Governor of a Place
Besieged Ought Himself to go out to Parley_. I like that!"
Madam Grant laughed. "I'd like to have known Montaigne; he was a kind
of old maid, but he was a modern, after all; common sense will do if you
can't get humor."
"Where did you get all these books, Mamsy?"
Her face grew blank again; her eyes wandered. She recited in a sort of
croon:
"Heard, have you? what? they have told you he never
repented his sin.
How do they know it? are they his mother? are you of
his kin?"
A frightened look came on the boy's face and his hand went to hers
again.
"Mamsy, Mamsy!" he cried. "Come back, Mamsy! I want you!"
She turned to him as if she had never seen him before. "Oh!" she said,
and drew aside. Then: "You mustn't ask questions, my boy."
"I won't, Mamsy."
"You're a good little boy and you came out of the dark," she pursued.
"Out of the dark?" he repeated, tempting her on. His curiosity was
manifest.
"Don't you remember?"
"I'm not sure. They was a place--"
"There was a place," she corrected.
"There was a place where they beat me, and I ran away, and I found you,
and you were good to me."
"No, it is you who have been good--I'm not good; I'm bad, Francis."
"I know you're good, Mamsy, because you teach me to do everything right,
and I love you!"
With a quick impulse she clasped him to her, but even as she did so, her
face changed again, this time with an expression of pain. She put her
hand to her heart suddenly and moaned. He watched her in terror.
"Get the bottle!" she commanded huskily, dropping to the floor, to
support herself on her elbow.
He ran to a little bath-room beside the closet, brought a bottle and
spoon, poured out a dose of the medicine and put it to her lips.
Finally she sat up, listening.
"Somebody's coming. _She_ is coming! Come here, Francis! Quickly!"
Taking him by the hand, she led him to the closet in the back room,
pushed him inside, closed the door and locked it.
It was dark in the closet, but he knew its contents as well as if he
could see them. Upon a row of shelves were account-books and papers
covered with dust. On nails in the wall his own small stock of clothes
hung, and in a wooden box on the floor were his playthings--blocks, a
wooden horse, several precious bits of twine and leather, a collection
of spools and a toy globe. He sat down on this box patiently and
waited.
Presently there came a knock at the hall door. Madam Grant opened it and
some one entered. He heard his guardian's voice saying:
"Come in, Grace, here I am, such as I am, and here you are, such as you
are." Then her voice changed, becoming tremulous and excited. "Ah, but
she's beautiful! May I kiss her, Grace? Oh, what eyes! Her father's
eyes, aren't they? Don't be afraid, Grace, let her come to me."
There was a reply in a soft voice which Francis could not make out, as
they passed into the front room. He tried to peep through the keyhole,
but as the key had been left in, he could see nothing. He sat down upon
the box again to wait, playing with his toy globe. After a while he
noticed a thin streak of light admitted by a crack in the panel of the
door, and rose to see if he could see through it. At the height of his
eye it was too narrow to show him anything in the room, but farther up
it widened. He pulled down several account-books from the shelves and
piled them upon the box. Standing tiptoe upon these, he found that he
could get a clear though limited view of the bay-window.
Here a little girl sat quietly, vividly illuminated in the sunshine.
She was scarcely more than four years of age and was dressed in a navy
blue silk frock whose collar and pockets were elaborately trimmed with
ruffles of white satin and bows of ribbon. She wore a white muslin cap
decorated with ribbon, lace and rosebuds; white stockings showed above
her high buttoned boots; her hair was a truant mass of fine-spun
threads, curling, tawny yellow. Her face was round, her eyes
extraordinarily wide apart under level, straight brows. What caught and
held his attention, however, as he watched, was a velvety mole upon her
left cheek, so placed as to be a piquant ornament rather than a
disfigurement to her countenance. She sat listening, tightly holding a
woolly lamb in her plump little arms. The two women were out of his
range of vision.
The steady low sound of voices came to him, but he made no attempt to
listen--his attention was riveted upon the figure of the little girl who
was sharply focused, as in an opera-glass, directly in his field of
view. Occasionally, as she was spoken to, she smiled, and her cheek
dimpled; but she seemed to be looking at him, through the door. She
scarcely moved her eyes, but kept them fixed in his direction, as if
conscious of an invisible presence.
The women talked on. Occasionally Madam Grant's voice rose to a more
excited note, and a few words came to him, betraying to his knowledge of
her that her mood had been interrupted by her customary vagaries. At
such times the little girl would withdraw her glance to gaze solemnly in
Madam Grant's direction; she showed, however, no signs of alarm. It
seemed, indeed, as if the little girl understood, even as he understood,
the temporary aberration. Then her eyes would return to his, as if
drawn back by his gaze.
So the scene lasted for a half-hour, during which time he caught no
glimpse of the other visitor. At last a hand was outstretched and the
little girl rose. Francis stepped down for a moment to rest himself from
his strained position; when he had put his eye again to the crack she
had passed out of his line of sight.
He was to catch a few words more, however, before the callers left.
"I'm glad you came to-day," Madam Grant said. "You were just in time."
"Why, are you going to leave here?"
"Yes, I'm going away."
"Felicia," the visitor said earnestly, "why won't you let us take care
of you? This is no place for you--it is dreadful to think of you here!
Now, while you are able to talk to me, do let me do something for you!"
"No; it's too late. Besides, there is Francis," said Madam Grant.
"Let Francis come, too. This is a terrible place for a child. Look at
this room--look at the filth and disorder!"
Madam Grant's voice rose again. "Take her away, take her away!" she
cried raucously. "She'll go to New York, she'll go to Toledo--I don't
want her in Toledo meddling! She'll be in New Orleans the first thing
you know; there she goes now! Take her away, take her away!"
The door closed. Francis heard the key turn in the lock. Then there
was the jarring sound of a fall and finally all was still. He waited
for some moments, then he called out:
"Mamsy, let me out! let me out!"
There was no reply.
"Mamsy!" he called out again. "Where are you? Come and let me out,
_please_ let me out!"
There was still no answer to his pleadings. In terror now, he pounded
the panels, shook the handle of the door, and then began to cry.
Climbing upon the box again, he caught sight of Madam Grant's skirt.
She was lying prone upon the floor. As he wept on, she moved and began
to crawl slowly toward him. At last her hand groped to the door and the
key was turned in the lock. He burst out into her arms.
The blood was gone from her tense, anguished face; one hand clutched at
her heart. She did not speak, but gasped horribly for breath. There
was no need now for her to direct him. He poured out a dose of medicine
and forced it between her lips. He gave her another spoonful; the drops
trickled from her mouth and stained the front of her crimson gown.
Then, with his assistance, she crept to his couch, pulled herself upon
it and lay down, groaning. He sat on the floor beside her, stroking her
hand.
For some time she was too weak to speak. Her black eyebrows were drawn
down, the cleft between them was deep, like the gash of a knife. Her
white hair fell about her head in disorder. She drew a ragged coverlid
over her chest, as if suffering from the cold, though the sun shone in
upon her as she lay and mercilessly illumined her desperate face. The
spasm of agony abated, and after some minutes she breathed more freely.
Then, with a sigh, her muscles relaxed and her voice came clear and
calm.
"You must be a good boy, Francis," she began, "for I am going away.
It's all over now with the worry and the puzzle and the pain. What will
you do, I wonder? Oliver might help, perhaps. Oliver isn't so bad,
down in his heart. He was fair enough. There's money enough. Francis,
when I fall asleep, look in the trunk and hide the money, if you
can--don't let them get it away from you! Wait till I'm asleep,
though--the key is in my bag. What a fool I was! I might have known.
There was my grandmother, she was mad, too. It may stop with me--oh,
she was a dear little thing, though!"
"Who was the little girl, Mamsy?" Francis inquired, his curiosity
overcoming his fear for her.
"Born with a veil, born with a veil! I was a seventh daughter,
too--much good it did me! I could tell others--who could tell me?
Bosh! it's all rubbish--we'll never know! fol-de-rol, Francis, it's all
gammon--all but Weenie. Weenie knows. Yellow hair, too; it will grow
gray soon enough!" Then, as if she had just heard his question she
broke our querulously, "Where did _you_ see her?"
"I looked through a crack in the door, Mamsy."
She pulled herself up in a frenzy of anger and shook her finger at him.
"Oh, you did, did you? You snooping, sniping monkey! I'll tell you
what you were looking at, you were watching the train to New York!
You'll go to Toledo, will you? You won't find anything there. Go to
New Orleans; there's plenty to find out in New Orleans! In Denver, too,
and way stations, but be careful, be careful! I was born in Toledo."
She sank back exhausted.
"Don't be worried, Mamsy," said Francis, attempting to calm her. "I
won't never go to Toledo, Mamsy!"
"'Won't never'!" She glared at him. "What did I say about double
negatives, boy? Two negatives make a positive, two pints make a quart,
two fools make a quarrel, two quarrels make a fool. What language! I
was at Vassar, too--I was secretary of my class! Oh, I want to see
Victoria! She would understand, I'm sure! Oh, Francis!" Her voice
dwindled away and her eyes closed.
For a moment she seemed to be asleep. Then a sudden convulsion
frightened him. She spoke again without raising her lids.
"Why, there's mother! Come and kiss me, mother! Did Weenie send for
you, mother? Oh, Weenie! Who's the old man? Father? I never saw
father on this side, did I, Weenie? He passed out when I was very
little, didn't he? So many people! Why, the room is full of them!
Yes, I'm coming--"
The boy was tugging frantically at her hand, calling to her without
ceasing, sobbing in his fright. He succeeded at last in bringing her
out of her trance and she opened her eyes to stare at him. Her breath
was coming harder. With a great effort she reached for the boy's head
and pulled it nearer, gazing into his frightened eyes.
"Poor Francis!" she gasped. "You've been so good, dear--you've been my
hope! Felicia Grant's hope! You have no name, dear; take that one,
instead of mine--Francis Granthope--oh, this pain!"
"Shan't I get you the medicine?" he asked, sobbing.
"No, it's no use." She pushed him gently away. "I'm going--to
sleep--now-- Don't call me back, Francis; I want rest. Remember the
trunk--good-by!"
She closed her eyes and rolled over on her side, turning her face away
from him.
He waited half an hour in silence. Then he put his hands to her arms
softly.
"Mamsy!" he said quietly but insistently. "Are you asleep, Mamsy?"
There was no answer.
He arose and looked for her leather bag. He found it on the floor where
she had fallen. Opening it, he found inside a heterogeneous
collection--strings, hair-pins, peppermints, papers, a lock of hair in
an envelope, a photograph, several gold pieces, and the key--he took it
and tiptoed into the little side room with excited interest. He had
never looked inside the trunk before and his eagerness made his hands
tremble as he unlocked it.
On top was a tray filled with account-books and papers, letters, folded
newspapers and a mahogany box. It was all he could do to lift it to get
at what was beneath. He struggled with it until he had tilted it up and
slid it down to the floor.
Below was a mass of white satin and lace. He lifted this piece by
piece, disclosing a heavy wedding gown, silk-lined, wrapped in tissue
paper, and many accessories of an elaborate trousseau--a half-dozen
pairs of silk stockings, a pair of exquisite white satin slippers, a box
of long white gloves, another of lace handkerchiefs, dozens of
mysterious articles of lingerie, embroidered and lace-trimmed. In a
lower corner was a little, white vellum, gold-clasped prayer-book.
Lastly he found a package securely wrapped in brown paper; opening this,
he discovered six crisp, green packages of bank-notes. These he
rewrapped and slid them inside his full blue blouse. Then he put
everything back in order, replaced the tray and locked the trunk.
Finally he stole back to the form upon the couch. "Mamsy, are you
awake?" he whispered.
There was no answer, and he shook her shoulder slightly. Then, as she
made no reply, he leaned over and looked at her face. Her eyes were
open, fearfully open, but they did not turn to his. They were set and
glazed with film.
A horror came over him now, and he shook her with all his strength.
"Mamsy, Mamsy!" he cried. "Look at me, Mamsy! What's the matter?"
Still she did not look at him, or speak, or move. He noticed that she
was not breathing, and his fear overcame him. He dropped her cold hand
and ran screaming out into the hall.
*CHAPTER I*
*THE PALMIST AND FANCY GRAY*
Fancy Gray was the lady's name and the lady's hair was red. Both were
characteristic of her daringly original character, for, as Fancy's name
had once been Fanny, Fanny's hair had once been brown. Further
indication of Miss Gray's disposition was to be found in her eyebrows,
which were whimsically arched, and her mouth, which was scarlet-lipped
and tightly held. Another detail of significance was her green silk
stockings, rather artfully displayed to lend a harmony to her dark green
cloth tailor-made suit, which fitted like a kid glove over Miss Gray's
cunningly rounded little body. Her eyes were brown and bright; they
were as quick as heliograph flashes, but could, when she willed, burn as
softly as glowing coals of fire. Her face seemed freshly washed, her
complexion was translucently clear, modified only by the violet shadows
under her eyes and an imperceptible tint of fine down on her upper lip.
Her hands, well beringed and well kept, were fully worth the admiration
which, by her willingness to display them to advantage, she seemed to
expect on their account.
In New York, a good guesser would have put her age at twenty-three; but,
taking into account the precocious effect of the California climate,
nineteen might be nearer the mark. She was, at all events, a finished
product; there was no evidence of diffidence or _gaucherie_ about Fancy
Gray. She appeared to be very well satisfied with herself. If, as she
evidently did, she considered herself beautiful, her claim would
undoubtedly be acknowledged by most men who met her for the first time.
On those more fastidious, she had but to smile and her mouth grew still
more generous, showing a double line of white teeth, those in the lower
jaw being set slightly zigzag, as if they were so pretty that it had
been wished to put in as many as possible--her cheeks dimpled, her eyes
half closed--and she triumphed over her critic. For there was something
more dangerous than beauty in that smile; there was an elfin humor that
captured and bewildered--there was warmth and welcome in it. It made
one feel happy.
As she sat at her desk in the waiting-room she could look across the
corner of Geary and Powell Streets to catch the errant eye of passing
cable-car conductors, or gaze, in abstraction, at pedestrians crossing
Union Square, or at the oriental towers of the Synagogue beyond. With
the bait of a promising smile, she caught many an upward glance. Fancy
Gray was not in the habit of hiding her charms, and she levied tribute
to her beauty on all mankind. She gazed upon women, however, far less
indulgently than upon men; never was there a more captious observer of
her sex. A glance up and a glance down she gave; and the specimen was
classified, appraised, appreciated, condemned, condoned or complimented.
Not a pin missed her scrutiny, not a variation of the mode escaped her
quest for revealing evidence. A woman could hardly pass from contact
with Fancy's swift glance without being robbed, mentally, of everything
worth while that she possessed in the matter of novelty in fashion or
deportment. Fancy appropriated the ideas thus gained, and made use of
them at the earliest opportunity. The waiting-room bore, upon the
outside, the legend:
+------------------------------+
| |
| FRANCIS GRANTHOPE, PALMIST |
| |
+------------------------------+
Inside, where Fancy sat daily from ten to four, the apartment was walled
and carpeted in red. Upon the walls, painted wooden Chinese grotesque
masks, grinning or scowling against the fire-cracker paper, hung, at
intervals, from black stained woodwork. Between the two windows was a
plaster column bearing the winged head of Hypnos; at the other end of
the room was a row of casts of hands hanging on hooks against a black
panel. The desk in the corner was Fancy's station, and here she
murmured into the telephone, scribbled appointments in a blank-book,
read _The Second Wife_, gazed out into the green square, or manicured
her nails--according as the waiting-room chairs were empty, or occupied
with men or with women. Whatever company she had, she was never
careless of the light upon her or the condition of her tinted hair.
It was a cool, blustering afternoon in August. San Francisco was at its
worst phase. The wind was high and harsh, harassing the city with its
burden of dust. Over the mountains, on the Marin shore, a high fog
hung, its advance guard scudding in through the Golden Gate, piling over
the hills by the Twin Peaks and preparing its line of battle for a
general assault upon the peninsula at nightfall. In the streets men and
women clung to their hats savagely as they passed gusty corners, and
coat collars were turned up against the raw air. Summer had, so far,
spent its effort in four violently hot days, when the humid atmosphere
made the temperature unbearable. Now the weather had flung back to an
extreme as unpleasant; open fires were in order. There was one now
burning in Granthope's reception-room, to which Fancy Gray made frequent
excursions. She was there, making a picture of herself beside the
hearth, having resolutely held her pose for some time in anticipation of
his coming, when Francis Granthope arrived.
Tall, erect and able-bodied, with the physique of an athlete, and a
strong, leonine head covered with crisp, waving, black hair, Francis
Granthope had the complement of the actor's type of looks; but his
alertness of carriage and his swift, searching glance distinguished him
from the professional male beauty. Fine eyes of deep, rich blue, fine
teeth often exposed in compelling smiles, a resolute mouth and a firm,
deeply cleft chin he had; and all these attractions were set off by his
precise dress--gloves, bell-tailed overcoat, sharply creased trousers,
varnished boots and silk hat. A short mustache, curling upward slightly
at the ends, and a small, triangular tuft of hair on his lower lip gave
him a somewhat foreign aspect. He had an air, a manner, that kept up
the illusion. Men would perhaps have distrusted him as too obviously
handsome; women would talk about him as soon as he had left the room.
Stage managers would have complimented his "presence"; children would
have watched him, fascinated, reserving their judgment. He seemed to
fill the room with electricity.
He sent a smile to Fancy, half of welcome, half of amusement at her
picturesque posture, and, with cordial "Good morning!" in a mellow
barytone, removed his overcoat and hat, putting them into a closet near
the hall door. He reappeared in morning coat, white waistcoat and
pin-checked trousers, with a red carnation in his buttonhole. He held
his hands for a moment before the fire, then looked indulgently at his
blithe assistant.
Now, one of Fancy's charms was a slender, pointed tongue. This she was
wont to exhibit, on occasion, by sticking it out of her mouth
coquettishly, and shaking it saucily in the direction of her nostrils--a
joyous exploit which was vouchsafed only upon rare and intimate
occasions. This, now, she did, tilting her head backward to give
piquancy to the performance.
Granthope laughed, and went over to where she sat.
"You're a saucy bird, Fancy," he commented, leaning over her, both hands
upon the desk. "Do you know I rather like you!"
Her face grew drolly sober; her whimsical eyebrows lifted.
"I don't know as I blame you," she replied. "You always did have good
taste, though."
"I believe that I might go so far as to imprint a salute upon your
chaste brow!"
"I accept!" said Fancy Gray.
He stooped over and kissed her. She was graciously resigned.
"Thank you, Frank," she said demurely. "Small contributions gratefully
received." She tucked her head into the corner of his arm, and he
looked down upon her kindly.
"Poor little Fancy!" he said softly.
"Have you missed me, Frank?"
"Horribly!"
"Don't laugh at me!"
"How can I help it, O toy queen?"
"Am I so awfully young?"
"You're pretty juvenile, Fancy, but you'll grow up, I think."
She was quite sober now. "Oh, there's an awful lot of time wasted in
growing up," she said. Then she squirmed her head so that she could
look upward at him. "You've been awfully good to me, Frank!" Her tone
was wistful.
"You deserve more than you will ever get, I'm afraid," was his answer as
he patted her hair.
"I think you do like me a little."
He shook his finger at her. "No fair falling in love!"
She laughed. "I believe you're afraid, Frank!"
"I don't know what I'd do without you, Fancy. We've been through a good
deal together, first and last, haven't we?"
"Yes, we've had a good time. I'd like to do it all over again."
"Heavens, no!" he exclaimed. "I wouldn't! There's enough ahead. From
what I've seen of life, things don't really begin to happen till you're
thirty, at least. All this will seem like a dream."
"Sometimes I hope it will." Fancy was looking away, now. Her gaze
returned to him after a moment of silence. "Don't you ever think of
getting out of this, Frank? You're too good for these fakirs, really
you are! Why, you could mix with millionaires, easy! And you've got a
good start, now. They like you. You've got the style and the education
and the 'know' for it."
He went back to the fireplace, standing there with his hands behind his
back.
"Oh, this is amusing enough. What does it matter, anyway? There are as
big fools and shams in society as there are in my business. Look at the
women that come down here, and the things they tell me! Why, I know
them a good deal better now than I should if I were on their
calling-lists and took tea with them! But you are right, in a way. I
suppose some day I must quit this and take to honest theft."
"Don't say that, Frank! I hate you when you're cynical."
"What else can I be, in my profession?"
"Oh, I do want you to quit, Frank, really I do, and yet, I hate to think
of it. What should I do? I'd lose you sure! I could never make good
with the swells. I'm only a drifter."
"Oh, you can't lose me, Fan; we've pulled together too long. You could
make good all right. You've got a pose and a poise that some ladies
would give their teeth for. I don't believe you've ever really been
surprised in your life, have you?"
"I guess not." Fancy shook her head thoughtfully. "When I _am_
surprised, it'll be a woman who'll do it. No man can, that's sure."
"No. I fancy you know all there is to know about men. I wish I did.
You'll do, Fancy Gray!" He approached her and playfully chucked her
under the chin. Then he looked at her gravely. "I wonder why you're
willing to drudge along here with me, anyway. You could get a much
better position easily--with your face--and brains."
"_And_ figure. Don't forget that!" Fancy shook her finger at him.
"Yes." He looked her over approvingly.
"No woman ought to be blue with a figure like mine, ought she?"
He laughed. "I can't imagine your ever being blue, Fancy!"
Fancy opened her eyes very wide.
"There's a whole lot you don't know about women yet," she said sagely.
"That's likely."
"Am I to understand that I'm fired, then?" She tried to appear demure.
"Not yet. I'm only too afraid you'll resign. It's queer you don't get
married. You must have had lots of chances. Why don't you, Fancy?"
"I never explain," said Fancy. "It only wastes time."
He went over to her again and very affectionately boxed her ears.
She freed herself, and turned her face up to him. "Frank," she said, "do
you think I'm pretty?"
"You're too pretty--that's the trouble!" he answered, smiling, as at a
familiar trait.
"No, but really--do you honestly think so?" Her face had again grown
plaintive.
"Yes, Fancy. Far be it from me to flatter or cajole with the
compliments of a five-dollar reading, but as between friends, and with
my hand on my heart, I assert that you are beautiful."
"I don't mean that at all," said Fancy. "I want to be _pretty_. That's
what men like--pretty girls. Beautiful women never get anywhere except
into the divorce courts. Do say I'm pretty!"
"Fancy, you know I'm a connoisseur of women. You are actually and
absolutely pretty."
"Well, that's a great relief, if I can only believe you. I have to hear
it once a day, at least, to keep up my courage. Now that's settled,
let's go to work."
He went back to the fireplace and yawned. "All right. What's doing
to-day?"
"Full up, except from eleven to twelve."
"Who are they?"
Fancy jauntily flipped open the appointment book and ran her forefinger
down the page.
"Ten o'clock, stranger, Fleurette Heller. Telephone appointment. Girl
with a nice voice."
"Be sure and look at her," Granthope remarked; "I may want a tip."
"Ten-thirty, Mrs. Page."
Granthope smiled and Fancy smiled.
"Do you remember what I told her?"
Fancy looked puzzled. "What do you mean? About her husband?"
"No, not that. The last time she came I tried a psychological
experiment with her. I told her that normally she was a quiet,
restrained, modest, discreet woman, but that at times her emotional
nature would get the better of her; that she couldn't help breaking out
and would suddenly let go. I thought she was about due this week.
There's been something doing and she wants to tell me about it to
appease her conscience. Give them what they want, and anything goes!"
Fancy listened, frowning, the point of her pencil between her lips.
"You don't need any of my tips on Mrs. Page," she said with sarcasm.
"At eleven, Mr. Summer, whoever _he_ is."
"I don't care, if he's got the price."
"It bores you to read for men, doesn't it, Frank? I wish you'd let me
do it."
As she spoke, the telephone bell on the desk rang, and she took up the
receiver, drooping her head coquettishly.
"Yes?" she said dreamily, her eyes on Granthope, who had lighted a
cigarette.
"Yes, half-past eleven o'clock, if that would be convenient. What name,
please? ... No, any name will do..... Miss Smith? All right--good-by."
She entered the appointment in her book, and then remarked decidedly,
"_She's_ pretty!"
"No objections; they're my specialty," Granthope replied; "only I doubt
it."
"Never failed yet," said Fancy.
Granthope looked at his watch, then passed through a red anteroom to his
studio beyond. Fancy began to draw little squares and circles and fuzzy
heads of men with mustaches upon a sheet of paper. In a few moments the
palmist returned, his morning coat replaced by a black velvet jacket
tight-fitting and buttoned close.
"Oh, Fancy, take a few notes, please; you didn't get that last one
yesterday, I believe."
She reached for a lacquered tin box, containing a card catalogue,
withdrew a blank slip and dipped her pen in the ink. Then, as he
stopped to think, she remarked:
"I don't see why you go to all this trouble, Frank. Nobody else does.
You've a good enough memory, and I think it's silly. I feel as if I
were a bookkeeper in a business house."
"One might as well be systematic," he returned. "There's no knowing when
all this will come in handy. I don't intend to give five-dollar readings
all my life. I'm going to develop this thing till it's a fine art. I've
got to do something to dignify the trade. This doesn't use nearly all
that's in me. I wish I had something to do that would take all my
intellect--it's all too easy! I don't half try. But it's a living.
God knows I don't care for the money--nor for fame either, for that
matter. Fame's a gold brick; you always pay more for it than it's
worth. I suppose it's the sheer love of the game. I have a scientific
delight in doing my stunt better than it has ever been done before. Some
play on fiddles, I play on women--and make 'em dance, too! Some love
machinery, some study electricity--but the wireless, wheel-less
mechanics of psychology for mine. Practical psychology with a human
laboratory. Pour the acid of flattery, and human litmus turns red with
delight. Try the alkali of disapproval, and it grows blue with
disappointment. I give 'em a run for their money, too. I make life
wonderful for poor fools who haven't the wit to do it for themselves. I
peddle imagination, Fancy."
"You get good prices," Fancy said, smiling a bit sadly. "There are
perquisites. There aren't many men who have the chances you do, Frank.
Women are certainly crazy about you, and now that you're taken up by the
smart set, I expect you will be spoiled pretty quick." She shook her
head coquettishly and dropped her eyes.
He shrugged his shoulders. "I should think you would be almost ashamed
of being a woman, Fan, sometimes," he said. "They are all alike, I
believe."
Fancy bridled. Then she bit her lip. "You'll meet your match some
day!"
"God, I hope so! It'll make things interesting. Nothing matters now. I
haven't really wanted anything for years; and when you don't want
anything, Fancy, the garlands are hung for you in every house."
"Did you ever have a conscience, Frank?"
"Not I. I shouldn't know what to do with it, if I had one. I don't see
much difference between right and wrong. We give them what they want,
as clergymen do. It may be true and it may be false. So may religion.
There are a hundred different kinds--some of them teach that you ought
to kill your grandmother when she gets to be fifty years old. Some
teach clothing and some teach nakedness. Some preach chastity--and some
the other thing. Who's going to tell what's right? My readings are
scientific; my predictions may be true, for all I know. Some I help and
some I harm, no doubt. But from all I can see, God Himself does that.
Take that Bennett affair! He lost his money, but didn't he have a good
taste of life? We'll never know the truth, anyway. Why not fool fools
who think there's an answer to everything, and make 'em happy? Do you
remember that first time we played for Harry Wing? I was new at it
then. When I crawled through the panel and put on the robe, the tears
were streaming down my face to think I was going to fool an old man into
believing I was his dead son. What was the result? He was so happy
that he gave me his gold watch to be dematerialized for identification.
He got more solid satisfaction and comfort out of that trick than he had
out of a year of sermons. I only wish I could fool myself as easily as
I can fool others--then I could be happy myself."
"Why, aren't you happy, Frank?" Fancy asked, her eyes full of him. "I
wish I could do something to make you happy--I'd do anything!"
"Oh, I'm not unhappy," he said lightly, neglecting her appeal. "I can't
seem to suffer any more than I can really enjoy. I suppose I haven't
any soul. I need ambition--inspiration. But we must get to work. Are
you ready?"
Fancy nodded.
"August 5th," he dictated. "Mrs. Riley. Age sixty-five. Spatulate,
extreme type. Wrist, B. Fingers, B, X, 5. Life 27. Head 18. Heart
4. Fate 12. 3 girdles. Venus B. Mars A. Thumb phalange
over-developed. Right, ditto. Now:--married three times, arm broken in
'94, one daughter, takes cocaine, interested in mines. Last husband
knew General Custer and Lew Wallace. Accidentally drowned, 1877.
Accused of murder and acquitted in 1878. Very poor.
"Don't forget to look up Lew Wallace, Fancy! Go down to the library
to-night, will you?" he said, laying down his note-book.
"Where did you ever get that old dame?"
"Madam Spoll sent her here. She's easy, but no money in her. Still, I
like to be thorough, even with charity cases; you never know what may
come of them."
The telephone bell prevented Fancy's reply. She took up the receiver
and said "Yes" in a languishing drawl.
"Yes. Number 15? .... Payson? Spell it .... Hold the line a minute."
She turned to Granthope, her ear still to the receiver, her hand
muffling the mouth-piece.
"Funny. Speak of angels--here's Madam Spoll now! She wants to know if
you've got anything about Oliver Payson?"
"Payson?" he repeated. "Oliver Payson? No, I don't think so, have we?"
"I don't remember the name, but I'll run over the cards. Talk about
method! I wish Madam Spoll had some! P., Packard, Page--no; no Payson
here." She returned to the telephone. "No, we have nothing at all.
Good-by." Then she hung up the receiver.
Granthope, meanwhile, had been walking up and down the room, frowning.
"It's queer--that name is somehow familiar; I've heard of it somewhere.
Oliver Payson--Oliver Payson."
"Funny how you never can think of a thing when you want to," said Fancy,
sharpening her pencil.
"I know something about Oliver Payson," Granthope insisted. "But it's
no use, I can't get it. Perhaps it will come to me."
"You never know what you can do till you stop trying," Fancy offered
sagely.
Granthope spoke abstractedly, gazing at the ceiling. "It's something
about a picture, it seems to me."
He walked into his studio, still puzzling with blurred memories. Fancy
took up _The Second Wife_.
At ten o'clock the door opened, and Fancy's hand flew to her back hair.
A girl of perhaps twenty years with intense eyes entered timidly. Her
hair was distracted by the wind and her color was high, increasing the
charm of her pretty, earnest, finely freckled face. She wore a jacket a
little too small for her, with frayed cuffs. Her shoes were badly worn;
her hat was cheap, but effective.
"I called to see Mr. Granthope; I think I have an appointment at ten,"
she said.
"Miss Heller?" Fancy asked. The girl nodded. Fancy took inventory of
the girl's points, looking her up and down before she replied, "All
right; just be seated for a moment, please."
She walked to the studio and met Granthope coming out. They spoke in
whispers.
"Let her down easy," Fancy suggested. "It's a love affair. She has a
letter in her coat pocket, all folded up; you can see the wrinkles where
it bulges out. Hat pin made of an army button, and she doesn't know
enough to paint. Make her take off her coat and see if her right sleeve
isn't soiled above where she usually wears a paper cuff to protect it.
She is half frightened to death and she has been crying."
"All right," said Granthope. "I'll give her five dollars' worth of
optimism."
Fancy put her hand in his softly. "Say, Frank, just charge this to me
and be good to her, will you?"
"All right. If you like her, I'll do my best. She'll be smiling when
she comes out, you see if she isn't."
As the girl went in for her reading, Mrs. Page walked into the
reception-room, and nodded condescendingly. She was a dashing woman of
thirty-five, full of the exuberance and flamboyant color of California.
Her hair was jet black and glossy, massively coiled upon her head; her
features were large, but regular and well formed; her figure somewhat
voluptuous in its tightly fitting tailor suit of black. She was a vivid
creature, with impellent animal life and temperament linked, apparently,
to a rather silly, feminine brain. Her mouth was large, and in it white
teeth shone. She was all shadows and flashes, high lights and depths of
velvety black. From her ears, two spots of diamond radiance twinkled as
she shook her head. When she drew off her gloves, with a manner, more
twinkles illuminated her hands. Still others shone from the cut steel
buckles of her shoes. She was somewhat overgrown, flavorless and gaudy,
like California fruit, and her ways were kittenish. Her movements were
all intense. When she looked at anything, she opened her eyes very
wide; when she spoke she pursed her lips a bit too much. Altogether she
seemed to have a superfluous ounce of blood in her veins that infused
her with useless energy.
Fancy eyed her pragmatically, added her up, extracted her square root
and greatest common divisor. The result she reached was evident only by
the imperious way in which she invited her to be seated and the
nonchalant manner in which, after that, she gazed out upon Geary Street.
Mrs. Page, however, would be loquacious.
"Shall I have to wait long?" she asked. "I have an engagement at eleven
and I simply _must_ see Mr. Granthope first! It's very important."
"I don't know," said Fancy coolly. "It depends upon whether he has an
interesting sitter or not. Sometimes he's an hour, and sometimes he's
only fifteen minutes." She spoke with a slightly stinging emphasis,
examining, meanwhile, the spots on her own finger-nails.
"Oh," said Mrs. Page, and it was evident that the remark gave her an
idea as to her own personal powers of attraction. "I thought Mr.
Granthope treated all his patrons alike."
"Sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn't," was Fancy's cryptic
retort. She watched the effect under drooped lashes.
The effect was to make Mrs. Page squirm uneasily, as if she didn't know
whether she had been hit or not. She took refuge in the remark: "Well, I
hope he will give me a good reading this time."
"It all depends on what's in your hand," Fancy followed her up, smiling
amiably.
Mrs. Page minced and simpered: "Do you know, somehow I _hate_ to have
him look at my hand, after what he said before. He told me such
_dreadful_ things, I'm afraid he'll discover more."
"Why do you give him a chance, then?" said Fancy coldly.
"Oh, I hope he'll find something better, this time!"
"Weren't you satisfied with what he gave you?" Fancy asked. "I have
found Mr. Granthope usually strikes it about right."
"Oh, of course, I'm satisfied," Mrs. Page admitted. "In fact, I trust
him so implicitly that I have acted on his advice. But it's rather
dreadful to know the truth, don't you think?"
Fancy nodded her head soberly. "_Sometimes_ it is." She accented the
adverb mischievously.
"Oh, I don't mean what you mean at all!"
"I know. You mean it's dreadful to have other people know the truth?"
"No; but I can't help my character, can I? It's not _my_ fault if I
_have_ faults. It's all written in my palm and I can't alter it. Only,
I mean it's awful to know exactly what's going to happen and not be able
to prevent it."
"It's worse not to want to." Fancy waved her hand to some one in the
street.
Mrs. Page withdrew from the conversation, routed, and devoted herself to
a study of the Chinese masks, casting an occasional impatient glance
into the anteroom. Fancy polished her rings with her handkerchief.
Granthope's voice was now heard, talking pleasantly with Fleurette, who
was smiling, as he had promised. As she left, flushed and happy,
Granthope greeted Mrs. Page, and escorted her, bubbling with talk, into
the studio. The door closed upon a pervading odor of sandalwood, Mrs.
Page's legacy to Fancy, who sniffed at it scornfully.
Many cable-cars had passed without Fancy's having recognized any one
worth bowing to, before the next client appeared; but, at that visitor's
entry, she became a different creature. Her eyes never really left him,
although she seemed, as he waited, to be busy about many things.
He was a smart young man, a sort of a bank-clerk person, dressed neatly,
with evidence of considerable premeditation. His hair was parted in the
middle, his face was cleanly shaven. His sparkling, laughing eyes,
devilishly audacious, his pink cheeks and his cool self-assured manner
gave him an appearance of juvenile, immaculate freshness, which rendered
an acquaintance with such a San Francisco girl as Fancy Gray, easy and
agreeable. He laid his hat and stick against his hip jauntily, and
asked:
"Could I get a reading from Mr. Granthope without waiting all day for
it?" As he spoke he loosed a frivolous, engaging glance at her.
"He'll be out in just a moment," Fancy replied with more interest than
she had heretofore shown. "Won't you sit down and wait, please?"
He withdrew his eyes long enough to gallop round the room with them, but
they returned to her like horses making for a stable. He took a seat,
pulled up his trousers over his knees, drew down his cuffs, felt the
knot in his tie and smoothed his hair, all with the quick, accurate
motion due to long habit. "Horrible weather," he volunteered
debonairly.
"It's something fierce, isn't it?" said Fancy, opening and shutting
drawers, searching for nothing. "It gets on my nerves. I wish we'd
have one good warm day for a change."
"Been out to the beach lately?" he asked, eying her with undisguised
approval. He breathed on the crown of his derby hat and then smelt of
it.
"No," she replied. "I don't have much time to myself. I hate to go
alone, anyway." Fancy looked aimlessly into the top drawer of her desk.
"That's too bad! But I shouldn't think you'd ever have to go alone.
You don't look it."
"Really?" Fancy's tone was arch.
"That's right! I know some one who'd be willing to chase out there with
you at the drop of the hat."
Fancy, appearing to feel that the acquaintance was making too rapid
progress, said, "I don't care much for the beach; it's too crowded."
"That depends upon when you go. I've got a car out there where we could
get lost easy enough. Then you can have a quiet little dinner at the
Cliff House almost any night."
"Can you? I never tried it."
"It's time you did. Suppose you try it with me?"
Fancy opened her eyes very wide at him and let him have the full benefit
of her stare. "Isn't this rather sudden? You're rushing it a little
too fast, seems to me."
"Not for me. I'm sorry you can't keep up. You don't look slow."
Fancy turned to her engagement book.
"You must have known some pretty easy ones," she said sarcastically.
The snub did not silence him for long. He recrossed his legs, drummed
on the brim of his hat, and began:
"Say, did you ever go to Carminetti's?"
"No, where is it?"
"Down on Davis Street. They have a pretty lively time there on Sunday
nights. Everybody goes, you know--gay old crowd. They sing and
everything. It's the only really Bohemian place in town now."
"I'm never hungry on Sundays," Fancy said coolly.
"Nor thirsty, either?"
"Sir?" she said in mock reproof, and then burst into a laugh.
"Say, you scared me all right, _that_ time!"
"You don't look like you would be scared easy. I guess it's kind of hard
to call _you_ down."
He folded his arms and squared his shoulders. "I don't know," he said.
"I don't seem to make much of a hit with _you_!"
"Oh, you may improve!"
"Upon acquaintance?"
"Perhaps. You're not in a hurry, are you?"
"That's what I am!" He went at her now with more vigor. "I say, would
you mind telling me your name? Here's my card."
He rose, and, walking over to the desk, laid down a card upon which was
printed, "Mr. Gay P. Summer." Fancy examined it deliberately. Then she
looked up and said:
"My name is Miss Gray, if you _must_ know. What are you going to do
about it?"
"I'll show you!" he laughed, drawing nearer. What might possibly have
happened (for things do happen in San Francisco) was interrupted by
sounds predicting Mrs. Page's return.
"Say, Miss Gray, I'll ring you up later and make a date," he said under
his breath. Then he turned to Mrs. Page and stared her out of the room
with undisguised curiosity.
"You can see Mr. Granthope now," said Fancy, unruffled by the
competition.
He made an airy gesture and followed the palmist into the anteroom.
Fancy grew listless and abstracted. After a while she went to the
closet, examined herself in the glass on the door, adjusted the back of
her belt, fluffed her hair over her ears and reseated herself. Then she
took her book languidly and began to read.
There came a knock on the door.
"Come in," Fancy called out, arousing herself again. The new-comer was
one who, though at least twenty-seven, was still graciously modeled with
the lines of youth. Her head was poised with spirit on her neck, but,
like a flower on its stem, ready to move with her varying moods, from
languor to vivacity. Her hair was a light, tawny grayish-brown, almost
yellow, undulant and fine as gossamer. In the pure oval of her face,
under level, golden brows, her eyes were now questioning, now
peremptory, but usually smoldering with dreams, hiding their color.
Their customary quiescence, however, was contradicted by the
responsiveness of her perfectly drawn mouth--a springing bow, like those
of Du Maurier's most beautiful women. The upper lip, narrow, scarlet, so
short that it seldom touched the lower, showed, beneath its lively
curve, a row of well-cut teeth. With such charm and delicacy of person
her small, flat ears and her proud, sensitive nostrils fell into lovely
accord. She wore a veil, and was dressed in a concord of cool grays,
modishly accented with black. Her movements were slow and graceful, as
if she had never to hurry.
"I believe I have an appointment with Mr. Granthope for half-past
eleven," she said in a smooth, low, rather monotonous voice.
"Miss Smith?" Fancy asked briskly, but with a more respectful manner
than she had shown Mrs. Page.
The lady blushed an unnecessary pink, and blushed again to find herself
blushing. She admitted the pseudonym with a nod.
"Take a seat, please," Fancy said. "Mr. Granthope will be ready for you
in a few minutes." Then her eyes fluttered over the visitor's costume,
rested for a second upon her long black gloves, darted to her little,
patent-leather shoes, mounted to her black, picturesque hat, and sought
here and there, but without success, for jewelry.
The lady took a seat in silence. She repaired the mischief the wind had
done to her hair, raising her hand abstractedly, as she looked about the
room. The Chinese masks did not entertain her long, but the head of
Hypnos she appeared to recognize with interest. From that to Fancy, and
from Fancy to the row of casts, her glance went, slowly, deliberately.
Then she took a large bunch of violets from her corsage, and smelled
them thoughtfully.
Fancy began to play with one of her bracelets, clasping and unclasping
it. The lock caught in a bangle-chain, and, frowning, she bent to
unfasten it. In an instant the lady noticed her dilemma, smiled frankly,
and walked over to the desk, drawing off her long glove as she did so.
"Let me do it for you!" she said, and, taking Fancy's hand, she busied
herself with the clasp.
Fancy watched her amusedly. The lady was so close that she could enjoy
the odor of the violets and a fainter, more exquisite perfume that came
from the diaphanous embroidered linen blouse, whose cost Fancy might
have reckoned in terms of her week's salary. With careful, skilful
movements the chain was unfastened, but the lady still held Fancy's hand
in her own.
"Oh, what beautiful hands you have!" she exclaimed. "I never saw
anything so lovely in my life! Let me see them both! I wonder if you
know how pretty they are!"
She looked questioningly into Fancy's face and the twinkle in Fancy's
eyes answered her.
"Oh, of course you do! Mr. Granthope must have told you! He has never
seen a prettier pair, I'm sure!" She laid them carefully down, palms to
the table, and smiled at Fancy.
"I see you've got the right idea about hands," said Fancy Gray archly.
"That second finger's pretty good; did you notice it?"
Both laughed.
"I hope you don't think I'm rude," said the lady.
"You don't worry me a bit, so long as you can keep it up. I'm only
afraid you're going to stop! But it seems to me you've got a pretty
small pair of hands yourself! No wonder you noticed mine!" Fancy gazed
at them, as if she were surprised to find any one who could compete with
her own specialty.
For answer, Miss Smith, as she had called herself, drew her violets from
her coat, kissed them and handed them to Fancy. Fancy played up; kissed
them too, nodded, as if drinking a health, and tucked them safely away
on her own breast. Then she treated Miss Smith to the by-play of her
delicious dimples, as she said, "Come in as often as you like,
especially when you have flowers!"
"Miss Smith's" face had become wonderfully alive, and she gazed at Fancy
so frankly admiring that now Fancy had to drop her own eyes in
embarrassment. At this moment Granthope's voice was heard as he came
out of his studio with Gay P. Summer. A kind of shyness seemed to
envelop the visitor and she drew back, her color mounting, her lids
drooping.
"I'm all ready for you, Miss Smith," said Granthope, coming into the
room and bowing suavely. "Come in, please."
Leaving Mr. Summer in conversational dalliance with Fancy Gray, the lady
followed the palmist into his studio. As she walked, her graceful,
long-limbed tread, with its easy swing, seemed almost leopard-like in
its unconscious freedom, her head was carried somewhat forward,
questing, her arms were slightly extended tentatively from her side, as
if she almost expected to touch something she could not see.
*CHAPTER II*
*TUITION AND INTUITION*
It was a large room, unfurnished except for a couch in a recess of the
wall and a table with two chairs drawn up under an electric-light bulb
which hung from the ceiling. The walls were covered from floor to
cornice by an arras of black velvet, falling in full, vertical folds,
sequestering the apartment in soft gloom. Over the couch, this drapery
was embroidered with the signs of the zodiac in a circle--all else was
shadowy and mysterious.
The young woman walked into the place with her leisurely stride--her
chin a little up-tilted, her eyes curious. In the center of the room
she stopped and looked slowly and deliberately about her. The corners
of her mouth lifted slightly with amusement, evidently at the obvious
picturesqueness of the studio.
Granthope watched her keenly. With his eyes and ears full of Fancy
Gray's ardent, dramatic youth, sparkling with the sophistication of the
city, slangy, audacious, gay, this girl seemed almost unreal in her
delicacy and exquisite virginity, a creature of dreams and faery, the
personification of an ideal too fine and fragile for every-day. Her
face showed caste in every line. He was a little afraid of her. Her
bearing compelled not only respect, but, in a way, reverence--a tribute
he seldom had felt inclined to pay to the _mondaines_ who visited him.
His confidence, however, soon asserted itself. He had found that all
women were alike--there were, as in chess, several openings to his game,
but, once started, the strategy was simple.
"Well, how do you like my studio?"
"It's like dreams I've had," she said. "I like it. It's so simple."
"Most people think it too somber."
"It is somber; but that purple-black is wonderful in the way it takes
the light. And it's all so different!"
"Yes, I flatter myself it is that. But I'm 'different' myself."
"Are you?" She turned her eyes steadfastly upon him for the first time,
as if mentally appraising him, as he stood, six feet of virility,
handsome, vivid and nonchalant. The color which had risen to her cheeks
still remained.
"You are, too," he went on, examining her as deliberately.
She smiled faintly and took a seat by the table and removed her veil.
Her face was now clearly illuminated, and Granthope's eyes, traveling
from feature to feature in quest of significant details, fell upon her
left cheek. His look was arrested at the sight of a brown velvety mole,
a veritable beauty-spot, heightening the color of her skin. It was
charming, making her face piquant and human. His hand went to his
forehead thoughtfully.
At the sight of this mark upon her cheek, something troubled him. His
mind, always alert to suggestive influences, registered the faintest
impression of a thought at first too elusive to be called an idea. It
was like the ultimate, dying ripple from some far-off shock to his
consciousness. The impact died almost as it reached him--a flash,
vaguely stimulating to his imagination, and then it was gone, its
mysterious message uncomprehended.
She watched him a little impatiently, seeming to resent his scrutiny.
Noticing this, he summoned his distracted attention and seated himself
at the table. But, from time to time, now, his glance darted to her
cheek surreptitiously, searching for the lost clue. He had learned the
value of such subtle intuitions and would not give up his efforts to
take advantage of this one.
She laid her bare hand upon the black velvet cushion beneath the light,
saying, "I'm sorry that something has disturbed you." She looked at
him, and then away.
"Why, nothing has disturbed me," he said. "Why should you think so?"
Even as he pulled himself together for this denial her quick perception
gave him another cause for wonder.
"I'm rather sensitive to other people's moods sometimes. That's one
reason why I came. I didn't know but you might tell me something about
it--how far to trust it, perhaps--though I came, I confess, more from
curiosity."
Her air was still so detached that her conversational approaches seemed
almost experimental. She spoke with pauses between her phrases, while
her eyes, now showing full and clear gray, lit upon him only to rove
off, returned and departed again, but never rapidly, as if she sought
for her words here and there in the room, and brought them calmly back
to him. She did not shun a direct gaze, but her look wandered as her
thought wandered in its logical course, for the time seeming to forget
his presence.
He took her hand and felt of it, testing its quality and texture,
preparing himself for his speech. Her hand was long and slim, with
scarcely a fiber more flesh upon the bones than was necessary to cover
them admirably. He had no thought at first except to give his ordinary
routine of reading, but his study of her showed her to be an exceptional
character. She was beautiful, with the loveliness of an aristocratic and
slightly bewildering spiritual type. Her hand in his was magnetic,
delicious of contact, subtly alive even though not consciously
responsive. Other women with more obvious charm had left him cold.
She, aided by no suggestion of coquetry or complaisance, allured him.
She awakened in him a desire not wholly physical, although he could not
fail to regard her primarily in the sex relation that, so far, had been
his chief interest in women. She, as a woman, answered, in some secret
way, him, as a man. This was his first wave of feeling. Her hint
amused him, true as her intuition had been; she had stumbled upon his
embarrassment, no doubt, and had claimed prescience, a common enough
form of feminine conceit. There he had a valuable suggestion as to the
direction of her line of least resistance to his wiles.
Following upon this, as the first feeling of her unreality faded, upon
contact, came the thought of her as a wealthy and credulous girl, who
might minister to his ambitions. He was without real social
aspirations, except in so far as his success in the fashionable world
favored the game he was playing. Years of contact with credulity and
hypocrisy had carried him, mentally, too far to value the lionizing and
the hero-worship he had tasted from his smarter clients. But the
patronage of such a fair and finished creature as this girl, especially
if he could establish a more intimate relation, might secure the
permanence of his position and his opportunities. He saw vistas of
delight and satisfaction in such an acquaintance. He had had his fill
of silly women whose favors were paid for in ministrations to their
vanity. Such tribute, easy as it was for him with his facility, irked
him. Here, perhaps, was one who might hold his interest by her fineness
and her mentality, and by the very difficulty he might find in
impressing her. There would be zest to the pursuit.
Beneath these waves of feeling, however, and beneath his active
intelligence, there was an inchoate disturbance in some subconscious
stratum of his mind. He felt it only as the slight mental perplexity the
mole upon her cheek had caused; he had no time, now, to pursue that
incipient idea. His impression of her as a desirable, pleasurable
quarry incited him to devise the psychological method necessary for her
capture. He knew to a hair, usually, what he could do with women; but
now he was forced to gain time by a preamble in the conventional patter
of the palmist's cult.
Her hand, it appeared, was of a mixed type, neither square nor conic,
with long fingers, inclined to be psychic. He remarked the
extraordinary sensitiveness denoted by their cushioned tips. Nails,
healthy and oval; knuckles indicating a good sense of order in mental
and physical life. She was, in short, of strong, vigorous mentality,
well-balanced, artistic, generous, liberal; but (he referred to the
Mount of Jupiter) with a tendency to be a looker-on rather than a sharer
in the ordinary social pleasures of life. Saturn, developed more toward
the finger, gave her a slightly melancholy temperament; Apollo showed a
great appreciation of the beautiful in nature, with no little critical
knowledge of art; Mercury was less developed, and implied a lack of
humor; Venus betrayed a well-controlled but warm feeling; it was
soft--she was, consequently, easily moved. Her thumb was wilful rather
than logical, her fingers suggested respectively, pride, perception,
self-respect, morbidity, love of the beautiful as distinguished from the
ornamental, tact.
He had thrown himself into a pose so habitual as to become almost
unconscious, though it was keyed to the theatrical pitch of his
picturesque appearance and surroundings. The girl's expression showed,
to his alert eye, a slight disappointment at the conventionality of his
remarks. This spurred him to more originality and definiteness. He
tossed his hair back with one hand in a quick gesture and turned to the
lines in her palm, examining them first with a magnifying glass and then
tracing them with an ivory stylus. Her eyes were fixed upon his, as if
she were more interested in the manner than the matter of his task.
"You are the sort of person," he said, "who is, in a certain sense,
egoistic. That is, after a criticism of any one, you would immediately
ask yourself, 'Would I not have done the same thing, under the same
circumstances?' You're stupendously frank--you'd own up to anything,
any faults you thought you possessed; you'd even exaggerate a jestingly
ignoble confession of motives because you hate hypocrisy so much in
others. You are eminently fair and just, as you are generous. You have
none of the ordinary feminine arts of coquetry. If you liked a man you
would say so frankly."
It was typical of Granthope's enthusiasm for his game that he dared thus
play it so boldly with his cards face up upon the table. His visitor
began to show more interest; it was evident that she appreciated the
ingeniousness of his phrasing. Her lip curved into a dainty smile. Her
eyes gleamed slyly, then withdrew their fire.
He continued: "You are slow in action, but when the time comes, you can
act swiftly without regard of the consequences. You are not prudish.
You are willing to look upon anything that can be regarded as evidence
as to the facts of life, even though you may not care to go into things
purely for the sake of experience. You are faithful and loyal, but you
are not of the type that believes 'the king can do no wrong'--you see
your friends' faults and love them in spite of those faults, yet you are
absolutely indifferent to most persons who make no special appeal. You
are lazy, but physically, not mentally--there is no effort you will
spare yourself to think things out and get to the final solution of a
psychological or moral problem. You love modernness, complexity of
living, the wonderful adjustments that money and culture effect, but not
enough to endure the conventionality that sort of life demands. You are
not particularly economical--you'd never go all over your town for a
bargain or to 'pick up' antiques--you would prefer to go to a good shop
and pay a fair price. You are fond of children--not of all children,
however, only bright and interesting ones. You are fond of dress in a
sensuous sort of way; that is, you like silk stockings, because they
feel cool and smooth; silk skirts, because they fall gracefully and make
a pleasant swish against your heels; furs, on account of the color and
softness, but none of these merely because of their richness or
splendor."
His face was intent, almost scowling, two vertical lines persisting
between his brows; his mouth was fixed. His concentration seemed to
hold no personal element; there was nothing to resent in the contact of
his fingers or the absorption of his gaze. Suddenly, however, he looked
up and smiled--he knew how to smile, did Granthope--and the relation
between them became so personal and intimate that she involuntarily drew
away her hand. He was instantly sensitive to this and by his attitude
reassured her. Not, however, before she had blushed furiously, in spite
of evident efforts to control herself.
His eyes glanced again at the mole on her cheek. Then, as if electrified
by the sudden kindling and intensification of her personality, his
subconscious mind finished its work without the aid of reason. As a
bubble might separate itself from the bottom of the sea and ascend,
quivering, to the surface, his memory unloosed its secret, and it rose,
to break in his mind. The mole--_he had seen it before_--where? Like a
tiny explosion the answer came--_upon the cheek of the little girl who
visited them that day_, twenty-three years ago, at Madam Grant's--the
day she died. It reached him with the certainty of truth. It did not
even occur to him to doubt its verity. In a flash, he saw what
sensational use he could make of the intelligence. Another idea
followed it--an old trick--perhaps it would work again.
"Would you mind taking off that ring?" he asked.
She drew off a simple gold band set with three turquoises. He laid it
upon the cushion, turning it between his fingers as he did so. In a
single glance he had read the inscription engraved inside. His ruse was
undetected; her eyes had roved about the room. He turned to her again.
"You are twenty-seven years old. You have a lover, or, rather, a man is
making love to you. I do not advise you to marry him. You have
traveled a good deal and will take another journey within a year.
Something is happening in connection with a male relative that worries
you. It will not be settled for some time. Are there any questions you
would like to ask?"
"I think you have answered them already," she replied.
He leaned back, to shake his hands and pass them across his forehead,
theatrically. Another bubble had broken in his consciousness. "Oliver
Payson!"--the name came sharply to his inner ear like a voice in a
telephone. Oliver Payson--he recalled now where he had seen the
name--_upon the newspaper cut pinned to the door of Madam Grant's
bedroom_. Like two drops of quicksilver combining, this thought fused
with that suggested by the mole on the girl's cheek. "Clytie
Payson"--this name came to him, springing unconjured to his mind. He
determined to hazard a test of the inspiration. He simulated the
typical symptoms of obsession, trembled, shuddered and writhed in the
professional manner. Then he said:
"Would you like a clairvoyant reading? I think I might get something
interesting, for I feel your magnetism very strongly."
She assented with an alacrity she had not shown before. Her eyes opened
wider, she threw off her lassitude, awakening to a mild excitement.
"Let me take your hands again--both of them. This is something I don't
often do, but I'll see what I can get."
He shut his eyes and spoke monotonously:
"I see a name--C, l, y--"
The girl's hands gave an involuntary convulsion.
"--t, i, e. Is that it? Clytie! Wait--I get the name--"
Beneath slightly trembling lids, a fine, sharp glance shot out at her
and was withdrawn again. It was as if he had stolen something from her.
"Payson!"
The girl withdrew her hands suddenly; she drew in her breath swiftly,
paling a little.
"That's my name, Clytie Payson! It's wonderful! Go on, please!"
She gave him her gracilent, dewy hands again, and he thrilled to their
provocative spell. He took advantage of her distraction to enjoy them
lightly. When he spoke there was no hesitation in his voice.
"I don't understand this! I don't know who these people are, or where
they are, and it seems ridiculous to tell it. But there is a fearfully
disordered room with the sun coming in through dirty, broken windows.
The floor is covered with rubbish, there's no furniture but a few old
boxes. I see two women and a little girl. They are in old-fashioned
costumes."
Clytie's face was pale, now, and she watched him breathlessly.
"One of the women has white hair and vivid black eyebrows. She talks
wildly sometimes; sometimes she's quite calm. The other woman is
middle-aged and has a soft voice. The little girl is dressed in blue;
she is sitting on a box listening. The crazy woman is kissing her."
He shook himself, shuddered and opened his eyes, to find Miss Payson
gazing upon him, her hand to her heart.
"It's strange!" she said.
"It sounds nonsensical, I suppose," he said, "but that's just what I
get. Can you make anything of it?"'
"It's all true!" said Clytie. "That very thing happened to me when I
was a little girl--so long ago, that I had almost forgotten it."
"You remember it, then?"
"Yes, it all comes back to me--though I have wondered vaguely about it
often enough. It was when I was four years old and I went with my
mother to call on this strange, crazy woman--if she were crazy! I never
knew. I never dared speak to father about it. He never knew that we
went, I think. I had an idea that he wouldn't have liked it, had he
known."
"And your mother?"
"She died--the same year, I think. We left San Francisco, father and I,
soon after, and we lived abroad for several years. I didn't even
remember the scene until long afterward, when something brought it up.
Then it was like a dream or a vision."
"Do you know, Miss Payson, I feel that you have very strong mediumistic
powers; I can feel your magnetism. I think that you might develop
yourself so as to be able to use your psychic force."
She took it seriously.
"Yes, I think I do have a certain amount of capacity that way. I can
never depend upon it, though, but my intuitions are very strong and
occasionally rather strange things have happened to me."
It amused him to see how quickly she had fallen into the trap he had set
for her. Experience had taught him it was a common enough assertion for
women to make, and he was cynically incredulous. He was a little
disappointed, too; as, in his opinion, it discounted her intelligence.
Nevertheless, he found in it a way to manipulate her.
"Perhaps I might help you to develop it," he suggested, "although I'm
not much of a clairvoyant myself; I claim only to be a scientific
palmist."
"I think you are wonderful," Clytie asserted, giving him a glance of
frank admiration. "This test alone would prove it. You see, having
some slight power myself, I'm more ready to believe that others have
it."
He waived her compliment with apparent modesty.
"Women are more apt to be gifted that way--it isn't often I attempt a
psychic reading. What is written in the palm I can read; as a physician
diagnoses a case from symptoms in the pulse and tongue and temperature,
so I read a person's character from what I see in the hand. I have been
particularly interested in yours, Miss Payson, and perhaps I have been
able to give you more than usual. I hope I may have the opportunity of
seeing you again; I'm quite sure I can help you, or put you in the way
of assistance."
She arose and slowly drew on her gloves, her mind full of the
revelation. He watched every motion with delight. Her brief mood of
irradiation had given place to her customary languor, and her fragile
loveliness, emphasizing the opposite to every one of his virile, ardent
traits, allured him with the appeal of one extreme to another. Most of
all, her mouth, wayward with its ravishing smile, enchanted him. It was
controlled by no coquetry, he knew, and it moved him the more for that
reason. Yet she seemed loath to go and moved slowly about the room.
She stopped to point with a sweeping gesture at one side of the
velvet-hung wall.
"It's rather too bad to hide the windows, isn't it?"
He smiled at her divination, doubtful of its origin.
"You have a very good sense of direction, haven't you?"
She appeared to notice his incredulity, but not to resent it.
"Indeed, I have very little," she said; then, giving him her hand with a
quick impulse of cordiality, she smiled, nodded and turned to the
anteroom.
He glanced at the table, saw her ring, and made a motion toward it.
Then it occurred to him that it might be used as an excuse for seeing
her again and he followed her out.
In the reception-room, Fancy was yawning; seeing them, she brought her
hand quickly to her mouth and raised her eyebrows at Granthope. He made
no sign in reply. Clytie walked up to her impulsively and held out her
hand.
"I do hope I'll see you again, sometime," she said.
Fancy laughed. "I do, too. You're the only one who's ever really
appreciated me. You make me almost wish I was a lady." By her tone,
there was some old wound that bled.
"You're that, and better, I'm sure," Clytie answered softly; "you're
yourself!"
She turned to leave. Granthope, who had watched the two women, amused,
opened the door for her, received her long, steady glance, her quiet,
low "Good morning," and bowed her out.
As soon as she had fairly left, he turned quickly to Fancy. "Where's
Philip?"
"In the back room, I suppose." Fancy looked surprised.
"Go and get him, please; tell him to find out where this girl lives, and
all he can about her."
"Say, Frank--" Fancy began, rising.
"Hurry, please! I don't want him to miss her. She's a good thing!"
"She's _too_ good, Frank, that's just it!"
"That's why I want her. I don't catch one like that every day. Why,
she's worth all the rest put together." He looked impatiently at her.
Fancy shrugged her shoulders and sailed airily out of the room.
Granthope stood for some time, his hands thrust into the pockets of his
velvet coat, gazing abstractedly at the red wall of his reception-room.
Then he took up the telephone and called for Madam Spoll's number.
He made himself known and then said, "I'll be round to-night before your
seance. I want to talk something over."
*CHAPTER III*
*THE SPIDER'S NEST*
The architecture of San Francisco was, in early days, simple and
unpretentious, befitting the modest aspirations of a trading and mining
town. Builders accepted their constructive limitations and did their
honest best. False fronts, indeed, there were, making one-story houses
appear to be two stories high, but redwood made no attempts in those
days to masquerade as marble or granite.
During the sixties, a few French architects imported a taste for classic
art, and for a time, within demure limits, their exotic taste prevailed.
The simple, flat, front wall of houses, now grown to three honest
stories high, they embellished with dentil cornice, egg-and-dart
moldings and chaste consoles; they added to the second story a little
Greek portico with Corinthian columns accurately designed, led up to by
a flight of wooden steps; the facade was broken by a single bay-window,
ornamented with conventional severity. Block after block of such
dwelling-houses were built. They had a sort of restful regularity, they
broke no artistic hearts.
In later days, when San Francisco had begun to take its place in the
world, a greater degree of sophistication ensued. Capitals of columns
became more fanciful, ornament more grotesquely original, till ambitious
turners and wood-carvers gave full play to their morbific imagination.
Then was the day of scrolls and finials, bosses, rosettes, brackets,
grille-work and comic balusters. Conical towers became the rage, wild
windows, odd porches and decorations nailed on, regardless of design,
made San Francisco's nightmare architecture the jest of tourists.
Lastly, after an interregnum of Queen Anne vagaries, came the
Renaissance and the Age of Stone, heralded by concrete imitations and
plaster walls of bogus granite.
Madam Spoll's house was of that commonplace, anemically classic style
which, after all, was then the least offensive type of residence. It
was painted appropriately in lead color--for the house, with the rest of
the block, seemed to have been cast in a mold--a tone which did its best
to make Eddy Street prosaic. It had been long abandoned by fashion and
was now hardly on speaking terms with respectability. It occupied a
place in a row of boarding-houses, cheap millinery establishments and
unpretentious domiciles. There was a dreary little unkempt yard in
front, with a passage leading to an entrance under the front steps;
above, the sign "Madam Spoll, Clairvoyant and Medium," was displayed on
ground glass, and below, hanging on a nail against the wall, was a
transparency. When the lamp was lighted inside this, one read the words:
"Circle To-night. Admittance ten cents."
This Thursday the lamp was lighted. It was half-past seven o'clock.
Devotees had begun to arrive, and, entering by the lower door, they paid
their dimes to Mr. Spoll, who stood beside the little table at the
entrance, left their "tests"--envelopes, flowers, jewelry or what
not--and passed into the audience-room.
This had once been a dining-room and its walls were covered with a
figured paper, above which was a bright red border decorated with
Japanese fans and parasols. A few gaudy paper lanterns hung from the
ceiling, and here and there were hung framed mottoes: "There Is No
Death"--"We Shall Meet Again"--"There Is a Land that is Fairer than
Day." This room was filled with chairs set in rows, and would hold some
forty or fifty persons. It was separated by an arch from a smaller room
beyond, where, upon a platform, stood a table with an open Bible, an
organ, two chairs and a folding screen.
Only the front seats were at present occupied, these by habitues of the
place, all firm believers, a picturesque group showing at a glance the
stigmata of eccentricity or mental aberration. For the most part they
were women in black; they bowed to one another as they sat down, then
waited in stolid patience for the seance to open. The others were pale,
blue-eyed men with drooping mustaches and carefully parted hair, and a
whiskered, bald-headed old gentleman or two who sat in silence. The
room was dimly illuminated by side lights.
Farther down the hallway, opposite the foot of a flight of stairs
leading upward to her living-rooms, was Madam Spoll's "study," and here
she was, this evening, preparing for business.
This room was small and crowded with furniture. The marble mantel held
an assortment of bisque bric-a-brac, sea-shells, paper knives and cheap
curiosities. The walls were covered with photographs, a placque or two,
fans and picture cards. A huge folding bed, foolishly imitating a
mirrored sideboard, occupied one corner of the room. A couch covered
with fancy cushions and tidies ran beside it. A table, heavily draped,
a three-legged tea-stand, an easel with a satin sash bearing the
portrait, photographically enlarged in crayon, of a bold, smirking,
overdressed little girl, a ragged trunk and several plush-covered chairs
were huddled, higgledy-piggledy, along the other side of the room.
Upon the couch Madam Spoll sat, spraying envelopes with alcohol from an
atomizer on a small bamboo stand before her.
She was an enormous woman of masculine type, with short, briskly
curling, iron-gray hair and a triple chin. Heavy eyebrows, heavy lips,
heavy ears and cheeks had Madam Spoll, but her forehead was unlined with
wrinkles; her expression was serene, and, when she smiled, engaging and
conciliating. She was dressed in black satin with wing-like sleeves,
the front of her waist being covered with a triangular decoration of
bead-work.
Watching her with roving, black eyes was Professor Vixley, smoking a
vile cigar. His face was sallow, of a predatory mold with a pointed,
mangy beard, and sharp, yellow teeth. He wore a soft, striped flannel
shirt with a flowing pink tie. From the sleeves of his shiny, cutaway
coat, faded to a purplish hue, his thin, tanned, muscular hands showed
like the claws of a vulture.
"You seem to be doin' a pretty good business," he remarked, dropping his
ashes carelessly upon the floor.
"So-so," Madam Spoll answered. "If things go well we hope to get a new
hall up on Post Street, but there ain't nothing in tests. Straight
clairvoyance is the future of _this_ business. Of course, we have to
give cheap circles to draw the crowd, but it's a lot of bother and
expense and it does tire me all out. Then there's always the trouble
from the newspapers likely to come up."
"Pshaw! I wouldn't mind gettin' into the newspapers occasionally, it's
good advertisin'. The more you're exposed the better you get along, I
believe."
"'Lay low and set on your eggs' is my motto," said the Madam. "I don't
like too much talk. I prefer to work in the dark--there's more money in
it in the long run. I don't care if I only have a few customers; if
they're good and easy I can make all I want."
"What do you bother with sealed messages for, Gert?" Professor Vixley
asked.
"Oh, I got to fix a lot of skeptics to-night. I can usually open the
ballots right on the table easy enough behind the flowers, but I want to
read a few sealed messages besides. It may help along with Payson,
too." She took up an envelope numbered "275." It was saturated with
alcohol. She held it to the light, and squinting at the transparent
paper, she read: "'When is Susie coming home?' Now, ain't that a fool
question? I'll take a rise out of _her_, see if I don't! That's that
woman who got into trouble in that poisoning case."
"Say, the alcohol trick's a pretty good stunt when you get a chance to
use it! But I don't have time for it in my business."
"Yes, it's easy enough if you use good, grain alcohol, but I wish I had
an egg-tester. They save a lot of time, and you can read through four
or five thicknesses of paper with 'em. Spoll, he has plenty of chance
to hold out the ballots and bring 'em in to me; his coming and going
ain't noticed, because he has to fetch 'em up to the table, anyway. By
the time I go on, all the smell's faded out. If it ain't, my
handkerchief is so full of perfumery that you can't notice anything
else. I'm going to fit up my table with one o' them glass plates with
an electric flash-light underneath that I can turn on with a switch.
You can read right through the envelope then. But I don't often consent
to tests like that. It deteriorates your powers. And my regular
customers are usually contented to send their ballots up open and glad
of the chance to get an answer. _They_ don't want to give the spirits
no trouble! Lord, I wish I had the power I had when I begun." She
smiled pleasantly at her companion.
"I see old Mrs. Purinton on the front row as I come in," Vixley
observed, shifting his cigar labially from one corner of his mouth to
the other.
"Say, there's a grafter for fair!" she exclaimed. "She's been coming
here to the publics for two years and never once has she gave me a
private setting. That's what I call close. She's as near as matches!
And always the same old song--little Willie's croup or when's Henry
going to write, and woozly rubbish like that. I got a good mind to hand
her a dig. I could make a laughing-stock out of her, and scare her away
easy. Folks do like a laugh at a public seance; you know that,
Professor."
"Sure! It don't do no harm as long as you hit the right one."
"Oh, I ain't out for nothing but paper-sports and grafters. I know a
good thing when I see it. I hope there'll be something doing worth
while in this Payson business. He may show up to-night. Lulu claims
she conned him good."
"I hope I'll have a slice off him," said Professor Vixley, his beady,
black eyes shining. "We got to get up a new game for him before we pass
him down the line."
"Oh, if anybody can I guess we can; there's more'n one way to kill a
cat, besides a-kissing of it to death."
"Yes, smotherin' it in hot air, for instance!" Vixley grinned.
"They's one thing I wish," said Madam Spoll, "and that is that we had a
regular blue-book like they have in the East. Why, they tell me there's
six thousand names printed for Boston alone. If we had some way of
getting a lead with this Payson it would be lots easier. But I expect
the San Francisco mediums will get better organized some day and
cooeperate more shipshape."
Here Mr. Spoll entered, a tall, thin, bony, wild-eyed individual with a
rolling pompadour of red hair, his face spattered with freckles. He
walked on tiptoe, as if at a funeral, bowed to the Professor, coughed
into his hand, and took up the letters Madam Spoll had been
investigating, putting down some new ones.
"Oh, here's that 'S.F.B.' that Ringa told me about," she said, glancing
at an envelope. "Is Ringa come in yet?"
"I ain't seen him; but it's early," said Spoll. "He'll show up all
right. I'll send him right in."
"Is Mr. Perry in front?"
"You bet!" Spoll was still tiptoeing about the room on some mysterious
errand. "Perry ain't likely to lose a chance to make a dollar, not
him!"
"He's a good one!" Madam Spoll smiled at the Professor. "I don't
hardly know what I'd do without him. I can always depend upon him to
make good. He ain't too willing, and sometimes, I declare, he almost
fools me, even. I've known him to stand up and denounce me something
fierce, especially when there was newspaper men in the audience, and
then just gradually calm down and admit everything I wanted him to. He
looks the part, too. Why, I sent him round to Mrs. Stepson's circle one
night, when she first come to town, and she was fooled good. I've seen
him cry at a materializing seance so hard it would almost break your
heart."
"Does he play spook?"
"No, he's best in the audience. He's a good capper, but I don't believe
he could play spook--besides, he's getting too fleshy."
"Who else have you got regular?" asked Professor Vixley.
"Only two or three. I don't need so many touts as most. I pride myself
on doing my own work without much help. Of course, you got to give a
name sometimes when a fishing test won't work, and a friend in the
audience helps. Miss French, she's pretty good, but she's tricky. I'm
afraid of her. I was gave away once to the _Chronicle_ and I lost a
whole lot of business. Men are safer. Harry Debert is straight enough,
but he's stupid. He's the too-willing kind, and you don't have a chance
to get any effect.
"Say, Spoll," she added to her husband, "be sure and don't take no combs
nor gloves! I ain't going to do no diagnosing in public--not for ten
cents. Them that want it can pay for it and take a private setting."
"They're mostly flowers to-night," said Spoll as he crept out of the
room.
"Lord, I do hate a flower test!" she groaned. "It's too hard work. Of
course, they're apt to bring roses if their name's Rose, or lilies and
daisies the same way, but you can't never be sure, and you have to fish.
Lockets is what I like, lockets and ballots."
At this moment Mr. Ringa entered. He was a bleached, tow-headed youth,
long and lanky, with mild gray eyes and a stubbly, straw-colored
mustache. Two front teeth were missing from his upper jaw. His clothes
seemed to have shrunk and tightened upon his frame. He bowed
respectfully to Madam Spoll and Professor Vixley, who represented to him
the top of the profession.
"Did you get that 'S.F.B.' letter, all right?" he asked.
"Yes, what about it?"
"She's easy!"
Vixley grinned. "If she's easy for you she must be a cinch for us!"
Ringa persevered. "Well, I got the dope, anyway. She's a Mrs. Brindon
and she's worried about her husband--he's gone dotty on some fluzie up
North. I read her hand last week. I told her they was trouble coming to
her along of a dark woman--she's one of these beer-haired blondes--what
I call a Wuerzburger blonde--then I showed it to her in the
heart-streak. 'Go ahead and tell me how it will come out,' she says. I
says: 'There's a peculiar condition in your hand that I ain't quite on
to,' I says. She says: 'Why, can't you read it?' Says I: 'Madam, if I
could read that well, I wouldn't be doing palms for no two bits a shot;
I'd be where Granthope is, with a fly-away studio and crowding it at
five plunks, per.' Then I says: 'Say, I hear Madam Spoll has great
gifts in predicting at all affairs of the heart. I ain't never been to
any of her circles, but why don't you shoot around next Thursday night
and try her out?' 'What'll I do?' she says. Then I told her to write
on a paper, 'Does he care more for Mae Phillips than he does for me, and
how will it come out?' She done it and sealed it up into an envelope I
give her."
[Illustration: "I told her they was trouble coming to her"]
"Good work!" said Madam Spoll. "I'll give you a rake-off if I land her.
I've got her ballot right here. I won't need to open it."
"Ain't that job worth a dollar to you as it stands?" Ringa asked
nervously. "I'll call it square and take my chances on the percentage."
"All right. It's a good sporting chance! Only I wish it was a man.
Women are too close." Madam Spoll opened her purse and paid him.
As Ringa left, Vixley asked: "By the way, how about this fellow Payson?
Do you think Lulu roped him?"
"I guess so. Lulu's done pretty well lately, and she's brought me
considerable business. She ought to be here by this time."
"I should think she'd be able to handle him alone."
"Don't you go and tell her so! The thing for her to do is to get a
manager, but I don't intend to queer my own game."
"What line is she workin' now? She's failed at about everything ever
since she begun with cards."
"Oh, she's doing the 'Egyptian egg' reading. Wouldn't that freeze you?
Lord, that was out of date twenty years go; but everything goes in San
Francisco."
"Say, ain't this town the penultimate limit!" Vixley ejaculated,
grinning. "Why, the dopes will stand in line all night for a chance to
be trimmed, and send their money by express, prepaid, if you let 'em.
Gert, sometimes I'm ashamed of myself for keepin' 'em waitin' so long!
Talk about takin' a gumdrop away from a sick baby; that's hard labor to
what we did for Bennett. What I want to know is, how do these damn
fools ever get all the money we take away from 'em? It don't look like
they had sense enough to cash a check."
"If I had one or two more decoys as good as Ringa and Lulu Ellis, I'd be
fixed all right. I could stake out all the dopes in town. Say,
Granthope could cut up a lot of easy cash if he'd agree to stand in. I
tried to tap him about this here Payson, and he wouldn't give me a tip."
"Perhaps he didn't know anything. You can't loosen up when you're wide
open, can you?"
"He generally knows all there is to know. The trouble is he's getting
too high-toned. Since he fitted up his new studio and butted into
society you can't get near him with nothing like a business proposition.
I believe he thinks he's too good for this place and will go East. He's
a nice boy, though. I ain't got nothing against him, only I wish he'd
help us out. Hello, here's Lulu. Good evening, Lulu, how's Egyptian
eggs to-day?"
Lulu Ellis was a dumpy, roly-poly, soft-eyed, soft-haired, pink-cheeked
young woman, as innocent appearing a person as ever lived on her wits.
Not that she had many of them, but a limited sagacity is enough to dupe
victims as willing to be cajoled as those who appeal to the Egyptian egg
for a sign of the future. Lulu's large, brown eyes were enough to
distract one's attention from her rule-of-thumb methods. Her fat little
hand was soft and white, her plump little body full of extravagant
curves.
"Say, Mr. Payson has come!" she exclaimed immediately, with considerable
excitement. "He's on the third row at the far end."
Madam Spoll became alert. "Did you see his test?"
"No, he was here when I come," Lulu replied.
"Go out and get Spoll." Madam Spoll spoke sharply. "We've got to fix
this thing up right now."
Lulu returned to say: "There's such a crowd coming in he can't leave,
but he says it was a gold watch with a seal fob."
"All right, so far," said the Madam. "Now, Lulu, are you sure of what
you told me?"
Lulu's reply was interrupted by the entrance of Francis Granthope, in
opera hat and Inverness cape, making a vivid contrast to the
disreputable aspect of Professor Vixley. He greeted the three
conspirators with his customary elegance.
"I'm sorry I had nothing about Payson when you rang me up, Madam Spoll,
but just afterward his daughter came in for a reading. Queer, wasn't
it?"
"God, that's a stroke of luck!" said Vixley eagerly. "I say, Frank, you
can work her while we handle the old man, and we'll clean up a fortune.
They say he's a millionaire." Vixley's little eyes gleamed.
"Let's hear what Lulu has to say, first," said Madam Spoll.
"Why, I didn't get much," Lulu confessed. "He said he dropped in by
accident as he was passing by, to see what Egyptian egg astrology was.
I got his name off of some letters he had in his overcoat pocket. I made
him hang it on the hall hat-rack. I did all I could for him----"
"Did he get gay with you?" Professor Vixley interrupted. He had been
overtly enjoying Lulu's plump charms with his rapacious eyes.
Granthope smiled; Lulu Ellis colored slightly.
"No, he didn't! I don't do none of that kind of work!"
"The more fool you!" Madam Spoll retorted. "He's an old man, ain't he?"
"Sixty," said Vixley, "I looked him up."
"Then he ought to be easy as chewing gum," said Madam Spoll.
Granthope lighted a cigarette and listened with a mildly cynical
expression.
"He ain't that kind, though," Lulu insisted. "I ain't altogether a
fool, after all. Why, he don't even go to church!"
Her three auditors laughed aloud, the Professor raucously, Madam Spoll
with a bubbling chuckle, Granthope with scarcely more than an audible
smile.
"That settles it, then. You're coming on, Lulu! What else do you know?"
said Madam Spoll.
"Well, he has a daughter----"
"Yes, Granthope knows all about that," from the Madam.
"Her name is Clytie," said Granthope. "Twenty-seven."
"Is she a looker?" asked Vixley.
Granthope turned to him and gave him a patronizing glance. "_You_
wouldn't think so, Professor. She's hardly your style. But she's good
enough for me!" He languidly flipped the ash from his cigarette and
took his pose again.
Lulu went on: "I think he had a love affair before he was married, but I
couldn't quite get it. I didn't dare to fish very much. And that's
about all I got."
"That's plenty, Lulu. You can go now. Here's a dollar for you and much
obliged for passing him up."
"Oh, thank you," said Lulu. "I'm afraid it ain't worth that much. He
gave me a dollar himself, though I don't charge but four bits, usually."
"Lord, what a fool!" said Vixley, watching her go out. "That girl won't
ever get nowhere, she's too innocent. She knows no more about real life
than a boiled egg."
"She's all right for me, though," Madam Spoll replied. "That's just the
kind I need in my business. She fools 'em every time. They ain't
nothing like a good blusher for a stool-pigeon, you take my word for it.
Lulu's all right in her place." She turned to wash her hands at a bowl
in the corner.
"Well," said Vixley, crossing his legs, "are you coming in with us,
Frank?"
"It looks pretty good to me, so far. But it depends. What have you got
about Payson, anyway?" Granthope's tone was languid.
Madam Spoll winked at Vixley, as she wiped her hands behind the
palmist's back.
"Why," Vixley replied, "Payson's in wool and is director of a bank,
besides. He's a square-head with a high forehead, and them are easy.
Gertie, here, can get him into a private sittin', and when she does, you
leave him to her--she'll find a way all right. She don't do no lumpy
work, Gertie don't, you know that, all right! When she passes him along
to me, I'll manage him like the way we worked Bennett with the real
estate. I'd like another chance as good as him."
"You just wait," said Madam Spoll. "I got a hunch that this Payson is
going to be pretty good pie; and we got a good strong combination,
Frank, if you want to do your share."
"It's a pity Spoll ain't got some of Gertie's gumption," said Vixley,
smiling with approval at his partner.
"Don't you make no mistake about Spoll--he's done some good work on
Payson already." The Madam was adjusting her waist before the glass and
coquetting with her hair. "The trouble with you, Vixley, is that you
ain't got no executive ability--I'm going to organize this game myself.
I can see a way to use Spoll and Ringa, and Flora, too. We want to go
into this thing big. Payson's a keener bird than Bennett was, but
they's more in him."
"So Spoll has begun, has he?" Granthope asked.
"Yes. He located the Paysons over on North Beach."
"I know that much already. The mother's dead. Mr. and Miss Payson have
traveled abroad. What else do you know about her?"
"Why, it seems she's the sole heir. Good news for you, eh? High
society, too--Flower Mission, Kitchen Garden, Friday Cotillions,
Burlingame, everything. She could help you, Frank, if you got on the
right side of her."
Here Mr. Spoll tiptoed in, bowed to Granthope, and said:
"Eight o'clock, Gertie."
Madam Spoll arose cumbrously, took a last peep in the mirror of the
folding bed and turned into the hall, saying, "You take my advice,
Frank. We depend upon you. See what you can do with the girl." She
paused to bend a keen glance upon him. "What did you do with her,
anyway?"
"Why, I did happen on something," he answered. "Do you remember Madam
Grant, who used to live down on Fifth Street, twenty-odd years ago?"
Madam Spoll came back into the room eagerly.
"The crazy woman who lived so queer and yet had lots of money? Yes!
She did clairvoyance, didn't she? I remember. She had a kid with her,
too. Let's see--he ran away with the money, didn't he? And nobody ever
knew what become of him. What about her?"
There was a duel of astute glances between them. Granthope had his own
reasons for not wanting to say too much. He guarded his secret
carefully, as he had guarded it from her for years.
"Miss Payson used to go down to see Madam Grant with her mother, when
she was a little girl."
"No! _did_ she, though? With her mother? That's queer! Hold on,
Vixley. What did Lulu say about a love affair before Payson was
married? Do you get that? Here's his wife visiting Madam Grant; you
remember her, don't you? There's something in that I believe we got a
good starter already."
Spoll appeared again, anxiously beckoning, and she went with him down
the hall.
Vixley took up the scent. "Say, Frank," he asked, "how did you happen
to get on to that, anyway? That was slick work."
Granthope turned to him and replied patronizingly, "Oh, I ought to know
something about women by this time. I got her to talking."
Vixley frowned, intent in thought, stroking his scant, pointed beard and
biting his mustache; then he slapped his knee with his claw-like hand.
"Say, you got a grand chance there," he exclaimed. "See here, you can
get in with the swells and be in a position to help out lots. It's the
chance of a lifetime, and we'll make it worth your while."
"How?" Granthope inquired contemptuously.
"By a fair exchange of information. You put us wise, and we'll put you
wise. I'll trust you to find ways of using what help we give you." He
cackled.
"Yes--you can trust me. I think I might have some fun out of it. I
don't mind helping you out, but all I need myself is a little
imagination, some common-sense and a frock coat."
Vixley looked at him admiringly. "I wish't I had your chance, Frank;
that's what I do. Say, you just light 'em and throw 'em away, don't
you! I s'pose if I had your looks I could do it myself."
Granthope looked him over calmly. "There's no knowing what a bath and a
manicure and a suit of clothes would do for you, Professor."
"You can't make brains out o' soap," retorted the medium.
"And you can't make money out of dirt.
"We'll see who has the money six months from now."
"It's a fair enough bargain. I take the girl, you take the money. I'm
satisfied." Granthope arose and yawned. "Oh," he added, "did you know
Payson had a partner named Riley? He was drowned in seventy-seven."
"That's funny. Queer how things come our way! Mrs. Riley is here in the
front room with a test. She was tried for the murder of one of her
husbands. Gert's goin' to shoot her up with it to-night. You better go
in and see the fun. She'll give it to her good."
"I think I will," said the palmist.
He left Vixley plunged in thought, and walked out.
Turning into the audience-room he sat down on a chair in the rear. The
place was almost filled. His eyes scanned the assembly carefully,
roving from one spectator to another. On a side seat near him, a party
of four, young girls and men, sat giggling and chewing gum. The rest of
the company showed a placid vacancy of expression or lukewarm
expectancy.
Madam Spoll at the organ and her husband with his violin, had,
meanwhile, been playing a dreary piece of music, "to induce the proper
conditions," as she had announced from the platform. They stopped,
retarding a minor chord, and the medium went to the table and began to
handle the tests, rearranging them, putting some aside, bringing others
forward, in an abstracted manner. Then, looking up with a
self-satisfied smile, she spoke:
"I want to say something to the new-comers and skeptics here to-night in
explanation of these tests. Them who have thoroughly investigated the
subject and are familiar with every phase of mediumship, understand, of
course, that these objects are placed here merely to attract magnetism
to the sitter and induce the proper conditions, so that your spirit
friends will be able to communicate with you. This phase of mediumship
is called psychometry, but if I'd stop to explain just what that means,
I wouldn't have time to give any readings. Now, it won't be possible to
get any messages unless you come here in the proper mood to receive
them. You must send out your best thought and do all you can to assist,
or else my guides won't be able to establish communication on the spirit
plane. If you merely come here only to laugh and to make a scoff of the
proceedings, I'll have to ask you to leave before I begin, for they's
many here to-night who are honestly in search of the truth, seeking to
communicate with the dear, loved ones beyond on the other side."
She passed her hand across her eyes, sighed, and fingered her chin
nervously. She poked the articles on the table again.
"As I come on to this platform, I see an old man over there, in that
direction, what you might call a middle-aged man, perhaps, of a medium
height, and whiskers, like. I feel a condition of going on a journey,
you might say, somewhere east of here, though maybe not very far, and I
get the name John. The light goes over in your direction, lady, that one
with the red hat. Yes, you. Would that be your father, possibly?"
The lady, straightening herself upon being thus addressed, said timidly,
"I think perhaps you mean my uncle. His name was John."
"Maybe it is an uncle, though I get the influence of a father very
strong, too. Has your father passed out?"
The lady in the red hat nodded.
"Then it _is_ your father, do you see? Yes, I get an uncle, too, who
wishes to communicate, only his influence ain't strong enough. That
shows it ain't mind reading, as the newspaper folks say, don't it?" She
smiled, as if she had made a point, and the audience appeared to be
impressed.
"About this journey, now: maybe you ain't had no idea of traveling, but
John says you will. I don't think it's liable to be very far, though.
It'll be before the last of September or the first of October and John
says it'll be successful. Do you understand what I mean?"
The lady, frightened at the terrible import of this question, did not
speak.
"Did you send up an article?"
"It's that purse with the chain."
Madam Spoll fingered it and weighed it reflectively.
"I get a condition of what you might call inharmony. Seems to me like in
your home something is worrying you and you ain't satisfied, you
understand, with the way things are going and sometimes you feel as if,
well, you just couldn't stand it!" Her smile, now, bathed her dupe with
sympathy.
The lady nodded vigorously, with tightly shut lips.
"You kind of wonder if it does any good for you to go to all the trouble
you do to sacrifice yourself and try to do your duty, when it ain't what
you might call appreciated. And you're worried about money, too. Ain't
that so?"
She received a ready assent. The woman's eyes were fixed upon her.
Every one in the room watched the stripping naked of a soul.
"Well, John says that your father and him are helping you all they can
on the spirit plane, and he thinks conditions will be more favorable and
will take a turn for the better by the first of the year."
A question fluttered on the woman's lips, but before it had time to
escape, Madam Spoll suddenly turned in the other direction.
"While I was talking to that lady," she said, "I felt an influence
leading me to that corner over there by the clock, and I get the
initials 'S.F.B.' Is there anybody of that name over there?"
A flashily dressed woman, with tinted yellow hair and rhinestone
ear-rings, raised her hand.
"Those are my initials," she announced.
Madam Spoll grew impressive. "Your name is Brindon, ain't it?"
The woman gasped out a "Yes."
"Did I ever see you before?"
"No," said the blonde, "not to my knowledge, you didn't."
Madam Spoll made a comprehensive gesture with both hands, calling
attention to the miracle. "You sent up a sealed ballot, didn't you?"
The woman nodded. She was obviously excited, looking as if she feared
her skeleton was to be dragged forth from its closet; as indeed it was.
Madam Spoll took up the envelope with her delicate thumb and forefinger
and displayed it to the audience.
"You see, it's still sealed," she announced, then, shutting her eyes,
she continued: "My guides tell me that he's what you might call
infatuated, but he'll come back to you and say he's sorry. Do you
understand that?"
The woman was now painfully embarrassed and shrank into her seat. The
medium, however, did not spare her. It was too good a chance for a
dramatic sensation. She tore the envelope open and read its contents
boldly: "Does he care more for Mae Phillips than he does for me?" It
was a psychological moment. The old women stared at Mrs. Brindon with
morbid delight. There was a little buzzing of whispers through the
room. Then the audience prepared itself for the next sensation.
The medium picked up another envelope. "This is marked '275,'" she
said, then she clutched her throat. "Oh," she cried, "I'm strangling!
They's somebody here who passed out very sudden, like they was poisoned.
It's terrible. I can't answer the question the party has written
because there's an evil influence here, a wicked woman. She had three
husbands and two of 'em died suspicious. Her name is Riley. Would that
be you?" She pointed forcefully at a dried-up, old woman in a shawl,
with bleared eyes and a veined nose.
There was no response.
"Was this question something about your daughter?" Madam Spoll asked.
The woman coughed and bowed, shrinking into herself.
"I guess you better go somewhere else for your readings," Madam Spoll
declared cruelly. "Your aura don't seem to me to be very harmonious. I
don't know what's the matter to-night," she went on, passing her hand
across her forehead in apparent distress. "The conditions around me are
something horrid." Her voice rose. "There's somebody in this very room
here who has committed murder. I can't do a thing until I get that off
my mind. My guides tell me who it is, and that they'll be satisfied if
he'll acknowledge it and say he's sorry. Otherwise, this seance can't
go on."
She stopped and glared about the hall. By this time she had worked her
audience up to an intense excitement. Every one looked at his neighbor,
wondering what was to come, but no one offered to confess to a crime.
Madam Spoll raged up and down the platform in a frenzy. Then she
stopped like an elephant at bay.
"I know who this person is. It's a man, and if he don't rise and
acknowledge it, I shall point him out!"
No one stirred. On the fourth seat, a clean-shaven man of thirty-five,
with sharp, aquiline features and wide-spread ears, sat, transfixed with
horror, his two hands clenched. It was Mr. Perry, the cleverest actor
in the medium's support.
She advanced toward him as if drawn by a secret power, stared into his
eyes, and putting her hand upon his shoulder, said:
"Thou art the man!"
Mr. Perry wriggled out of her grasp. "See here," he cried, "you mind
your own business, will you. You're a fake! You got no right to make a
fool of me." His voice trembled, his face was a convincing mask of
guilt arraigned.
The medium shook a warning finger at him. "You either acknowledge what
I say is true, or you leave the hall! I can't go on with you here."
Mr. Spoll came in to stand beside her valiantly; spectators stood up to
watch the drama. Mr. Perry's eyes were wild, his face distorted;
suddenly he arose and rushed out of the room. Madam Spoll snapped her
fingers two or three times, shook herself and went back to the platform.
The murmurs died down and the seance was resumed.
Madam Spoll waited a while in silence, then she picked up a gold watch
with a seal fob from the table. "I'm glad to feel a more peaceful
influence," she said. "I'm directed toward this watch. I don't know who
brought it up, for I was out of the room at the time, but I get the name
'Oliver.'" She looked up expectantly.
A gentleman arose from an end seat in the third row. He had a high
domed head, partly bald, and a gray chin-beard with a shaven upper lip;
under shaggy overhanging eyebrows, cold gray eyes looked through a pair
of gold-rimmed spectacles. His air was benevolently judicial and
bespoke culture and ease. He had, moreover, a well-marked presence, as
of one used to being considered influential and prominent. A row of
false teeth glittered when he opened his mouth.
"That's my name," he acknowledged in a deep, fluent voice that was heard
all over the room, "and that is my watch."
Madam Spoll fixed him in the eye. "I'd like to know if I can't get your
other name. My guides are very strong to-night." After a few moments
of self-absorption, she smiled sweetly upon him. "I think I can get it
clairaudiently. Would it be Pearson?"
"No, but that's pretty near it, though."
"It sounds like Pearson to me, Pearson. Payson, oh, yes, it's Payson,
isn't it?"
"That's right," he said, and sat down.
"Did I ever see you before?"
"Not to my knowledge, Madam."
She looked triumphantly at her audience and smiled.
"If they's any skeptics here to-night, I hope they'll go away
satisfied." A number of old ladies nodded emphatically. "Of course,
newspaper men never come on a night like this, when my guides are
strong. Funny what you see when you ain't got a gun, ain't it? The next
time I'm half sick and tired out, they'll be plenty of them here to say
I'm a fake, like our friend here who left so sudden, white as a sheet.
Now, when I was directed to that watch, I was conscious of a spirit
standing beside this gentleman," she pointed at him benevolently,
"influencing me to take it up. It's a woman, and she must have been
about thirty when she passed out, and remarkably handsome, too. She was
sort of fair-complected, between dark and light. I get a feeling here
in my throat and down here," she touched her breast, lightly, curving
her arm gracefully inward, "as if she went out sudden, like, with heart
disease. Do you know what I mean?"
Mr. Payson had bent forward now. "Yes," he said, "I think I do. Has
she any message for me?"
"Yes, she has; but--well, you see, it ain't one I'd exactly care to give
in public, and I don't think you'd want me to, either. If you come up
after the seance is over, I'll see if I can get it for you. Or you
might do still better to have a private setting and then I'll have time
to tell you more. She brings me a condition of what you might call
worry or anxiety, as if you had something on your mind."
She turned to a bunch of flowers, and, taking them up, smelled them
thoughtfully, for a while. Mr. Payson settled back in his seat.
As the medium commenced again, Granthope arose with his faint, cynical
smile and walked quietly out. He found Mr. Spoll at the table by the
door.
"Well, I guess he's on the hook." The palmist buttoned his cape and
lighted a cigarette.
"Trust Gertie for that," said Spoll; "she'll land him all right, see if
she don't. Good night!"
Granthope turned up his collar and walked out into the street.
*CHAPTER IV*
*THE PAYSONS*
Mr. Oliver Payson lived on a half-deserted street on the northerly slope
of Russian Hill, in a quarter of the town which, at one time, promised
to become a favored, if not an aristocratic residential district. But
the whim of fashion had fancied in succession Stockton Street, Rincon
Hill, Van Ness Avenue, Nob Hill, and had now settled upon the Western
Addition and the Presidio Heights. The old North Beach, with its
wonderful water and mountain view, nearer the harbor and nearer the
business part of the city, had long been neglected. The few old
families, who in early days settled on this site, still remained; and,
with the opening of new cable-car lines, found themselves, not only
within a short distance of down-town, but at the same time almost as
isolated as if they had dwelt in the country, for this part of the city
is upon none of the main routes--few frequent the locality except upon
some special errand.
One side of the street was still unbuilt upon; on the southern side
stood three houses, each upon its fifty-vara lot, comfortably filling
the short block. That occupied by the Paysons was an old frame
structure of two stories, without attempt at ornamentation, except for
its quaint, Tudoresque pointed windows and a machicolated wooden
battlement round the flat roof. It stood on a gentle slope, surrounded
by an old-fashioned garden, which was hedged in, on either side, by rows
of cypress and eucalyptus trees, protecting it from the trade winds,
which here blow unhampered across the water.
In front, a scene ever-changing in color as the atmospheric conditions
changed, was ranged in a semi-circular pageant, the wild panorama of San
Francisco Bay, from Point Bonita and Golden Gate in the west, past the
Marin County shore with Sausalito twinkling under the long, beautiful
profile of Mount Tamalpais, past Belvedere with its white villas,
Alcatraz and Goat Island floating in the harbor, to the foot-hills
behind Oakland and Berkeley, where, in the east, Mount Diablo's pointed
peak shimmered in the blue distance.
In the second story of this house Clytie had a bookbinding room, where
she spent most of her spare time. It was large, bare, sunny,
impregnated with the odor of leather skins, clean and orderly. A sewing
frame and a heavy press stood behind her bench and upon a table were
neatly arranged the pages of a book upon which she was working.
Carefully placed in workmanlike precision were her knives, shears, glue
pot and gas heater and a case of stamping irons in pigeonholes.
She was, this afternoon, in a brown gingham pinafore, with her sleeves
rolled up, seated before the table, her sensitive hands moving deftly at
the most delicate operation connected with her craft. Upon a square of
heavy plate glass, she laid a torn, ragged page, and, from several old
fly leaves, selected one that matched it in color. She cut a piece of
paper slightly larger than the missing portion, skived the edges, and
pasted it over the hole or along the frayed margin. The work was
absorbing and exacting to her eyes; to rest them, she went, from time to
time, to the window and looked out upon the bay.
The water was gray-green streaked with a deeper blue. In the "north
harbor" two barks lay at anchor in the stream and ferry-boats plied the
fairway. In and out of the Gate there passed, at intervals, tugs with
sailing ships bound out with lumber or in with nitrates, steamers to
coast ports, or liners from overseas, rusty, weather-beaten tramps,
strings of heavy-going barges, lusty little tugs, lumber schooners
wallowing through the tide rip, Italian fishing smacks, lateen-rigged
with russet sails, saucy launches, and, at last, the magnificent bulk of
a white battleship sliding imperiously into the roadstead along the
waterfront.
At four o'clock Clytie's mind seemed to wander from her occupation, and
now, when she ceased and looked out of the window, her abstracted gaze
was evidently not directed at what she saw. Her mental vision, rather,
seemed alert. Her slender golden eyebrows drew closer together, her
narrow, sharp nostrils dilated; her lips, half open, inhaled deep,
unconscious breaths. The pupils of her eyes contracted like a cat's in
the light. Then she shook herself, passed her hand over her forehead,
shrugged her shoulders and resumed her work.
A little later this performance was repeated; this time, after her
momentary preoccupation, she rose more briskly, put her tools away, laid
her book carefully aside and took off her pinafore. After washing her
hands she went into her own room on the same floor. She went
down-stairs ten minutes after, in a fresh frock, her hair nicely
arranged, radiating a faint perfume of violet water. She opened the
front door and walked slowly down the path to the gate where the wall,
though but waist-high on the garden side, stood high above the sidewalk.
Here she waited, touching the balustrade delicately with her
outstretched fingers, as if playing upon a piano. The breeze loosened
the severity of her coiffure, which relaxed into slight touches of
curling frivolity about her ears and neck. Her pink frock billowed out
into flowing, statuesque folds as she stood, like a figurehead, gazing
off at the mountains. Her mouth was set into a shape not quite a smile,
a queer, tremulously subtle expression of suspense. She kept her eyes
in the direction of Hyde Street.
It was not long before a man turned the corner and walked briskly toward
her. He looked up at the first house on the block, searching for the
number; then, as his eyes traveled along to the next gate, he caught
sight of her. Instantly his soft felt hat swung off with a quick
flourish and he sent her a pleased smile.
"Here I am, Mr. Granthope!" Clytie called down to him, and on the
instant her face was suffused with pink. She had evidently expected
him, but now she appeared as agitated as if his coming had surprised
her.
He ran up the flight of wooden steps, his eyes holding hers all the way.
His dark, handsome face glowed; he abounded with life and spirit as he
stood before her, hand outstretched. In the other, he held a small
leather-bound book.
"Good afternoon, Miss Payson!" he said heartily. He shook hands eagerly,
his touch, even in that conventional greeting, consciously managed; the
grasp was sensitive and he delayed its withdrawal a suggestive second,
his dark eyes already at work upon hers. "How lucky I was to catch you
out here!" he added, as he dropped her hand.
"Oh, I've been expecting you for some time," Clytie replied, retreating
imperceptibly, as from an emotional attack, and turning away her eyes.
He noticed her susceptibility, and modified his manner slightly.
"Why! You couldn't possibly have known I was coming?"
"But I did! Does that surprise you? I told you I had intuitions, you
know. You came to bring my ring, didn't you?"
"Yes, of course. You really have second-sight, then?" He looked at her
as one might look at a fairy, in amusement mingled with admiration.
"Yes--haven't _you_?" She put it to him soberly.
"Haven't I already proved it?" His eyes, well-schooled, kept to hers
boldly, seeking for the first sign of her incredulity. Into his manner
he had tried to infuse a temperamental sympathy, establishing a personal
relation.
She did not answer for a moment, gazing at him disconcertingly; then her
eyes wandered, as she remarked: "You certainly proved something, I don't
quite know what."
He laughed it off, saying: "Well, I've proved at least that I wanted to
see you again, and made the most of this excuse."
"Yes, I'm glad I forgot the ring. I'm really very glad to see you,
too--I half hoped I might. Won't you come up to my summer-house? It's
not so windy there, and we can talk better."
He accepted, pleased at the invitation and the implied promise it held,
and followed her up the path and off toward the line of trees. The
place was now visited by belated sunshine which compensated for the
sharp afternoon breeze. In the shelter of the cypress hedge the air was
warm and fragrant. Here was an arbor built of withe crockery crates
overgrown with climbing nasturtiums; it contained a seat looking
eastward, towards Telegraph Hill. In front stood a sun-dial mounted on
a terra cotta column, beneath a clump of small Lombardy poplars.
As she seated herself she pointed to it. "Did you know that this is a
sort of cemetery? That sun-dial is really a gravestone. When I was a
little girl I buried my doll underneath it. She had broken open,
letting the sawdust all out, and I thought she must be dead. It may be
there now, for all I know; I never dug her up."
He looked over at the shaft, saying, "A very pretty piece of symbolism.
I suppose I have buried illusions, myself, somewhere."
She thought it over for a moment, and apparently was pleased. "I'd like
to dig some of them up," she said at last, turning to him, with the slow
movement of her head that was characteristic of her.
"Haven't you enough left?"
She started to reply, but evidently decided not to say what she had
intended, and let it drop there, her thought passing in a puzzling smile
as she looked away again.
He had laid his book beside him upon the bench, and, when her eyes came
back, she took it up and looked at it. A glance inside showed it to be
an old edition of Montaigne. She smiled, her eyes drifted to him with a
hint of approval for his taste, then she turned her interest to the
binding. As she fingered the leather, touching the tooled surfaces
sensitively, her curiosity did not escape his sharp eyes, watching for
anything that should be revelatory.
She explained: "I have a technical interest in bindings. I do some of
that work myself. It's curious that I happened to be at work to-day on
an old copy of Montaigne. I'm rebinding it for my father's birthday.
You'd never think my hands were of any practical use, would you?"
He laughed. "Inconsistencies like that are what baffles one most,
especially when one knows that most characters are inconsistent. But we
professionals have to go by general rules. I should expect you to be an
exception to all of them, though."
He watched her surreptitiously, noting her diminishing color, the
evasion of her glance, and the air of self-consciousness with which she
spoke, as they talked for a while of obvious things--the weather, the
view, and the picturesque, old-fashioned garden. She had taken the ring
and had put it upon her finger, keeping her eyes on its turquoises. Her
whole demeanor ministered to his vanity, already pleased by her frank
welcome. He was used enough to women's interest and admiration for him
to expect it and play upon it, but this was of a shyer and more elusive
sort; it seemed to hold something more seriously considered, it baffled
him, even as he enjoyed its unction. Besides all this, too, there was a
secret romantic charm in the fact that they had shared together that
vivid experience of the past. He came back for another draught of
flattery.
"It was odd that you expected me, wasn't it?" he said. "I can't help
wondering about it."
She had her eyes upon the Sausalito boat, which was weaving a trailing
web of foam past Alcatraz Island. At his words, she turned to him with
the same slow seriousness as before and replied:
"I shouldn't think it would seem so remarkable to you, your own power is
so much more wonderful."
"Perhaps so in that one case, but you know I don't, ordinarily, claim
clairvoyance. It's only occasionally, as the other day with you, that I
attempt it."
Her eyes awakened; she said earnestly, "Was I really able to bring that
out in you?"
He caught at the hint. "Why, what else could it be but your magnetism?
It was the more strange because I had never seen you before."
The glow faded, and she relaxed her nervous energy. "Ah, hadn't you? I
wonder!"
"Why, had you ever seen me before that day?"
"I think so. At least you seem, somehow, familiar."
"When was it, and where, then?"
She seemed too puzzled to answer, or fatigued with following an
intangible thread of thought. As she spoke, slowly, intensely, her
hands made large, vague gestures, often pausing in mid air, as her voice
paused, waiting for the proper word to come. "I don't know. It only
seems as if I had been with you--or near you, or something--I don't know
what. It's like a dream--or a story I can't quite recall, only--" she
did not finish the sentence.
He wondered what her game could be. Fundamentally cynical, though he
never permitted it to show in his manner, he distrusted her claims to
prevision. There was, after all, nothing in Miss Payson's words that
might not be accounted for by what he knew of the wiles of feminine
psychology. His training had taught him how much a baseless hint,
injected at the proper moment, could accomplish in the masquerade of
emotions and the crafty warfare of the sexes. That he and she had been
actors together in a past uncomprehended scene, he regarded as a mere
coincidence of which he had already made good use; he refused to connect
it with her suggestive remark, for he was sure that she must have been
unaware of his presence in Madam Grant's room that day, so long ago. It
seemed to him more likely that, woman-fashion, she had shot into the air
and had brought down an unsuspected quarry. And yet, even as a
coincidence, he could not quite dismiss the strangeness of it from his
mind.
He was preparing to turn it to a sentimental advantage, when Clytie, who
had relapsed into silence, suddenly aroused herself with one of those
impulsive outbursts which were characteristic of her.
"There is something about it all that is stranger still, I think!"
Her golden brows had drawn together, separated by two vertical lines, as
she gazed at him. Then with a little jet of fervor, she added:
"I'm afraid I know too much about you, Mr. Granthope! It's somewhat
embarrassing, really. It doesn't seem quite fair, you know."
"I'm not quite sure that I understand."
"Oh, you know! You must know!"
He laughed. "Really, Miss Payson, it's very flattering, of course--"
"Oh, no, it's not in the least flattering."
"I wish you'd explain, then." He leaned back, folded his arms and
waited indulgently. So long as he could keep the conversation personal,
he was sure of being able to manage her, and further his own ends. It
amused him.
She busied herself with a lace handkerchief as she continued, in a low
voice, as if she were ridding herself of a disagreeable task, and always
with the slow, monotonous turning of her questing eyes toward him, and
away. "Of course I've heard many things about you--you're a good deal
talked about, you know; but it's not that at all--it's an instinctive
knowledge I have about you. I can't explain it. It's a queer special
feeling--almost as if, in some way, I had the right to know. That's why
I wanted to see you again--I hoped you'd come. I wanted to tell you."
"But all that certainly is flattering," he said. "I wouldn't be human
if I weren't pleased to hear that you're interested, even if--"
She could not help breaking into smiles again, as she interrupted him.
"Oh, but I haven't told you yet."
"Please do, then!"
"It sounds so foolish when I say it--so priggish! But it's this: I don't
at all approve of you. Why in the world should I care? I don't know.
It isn't my business to reform you, if you need it." Now she had
brought it out, she could not look at him.
Curiously enough, though he had been amused at her assumption of a
circumstantial knowledge of him, this hinted comprehension of his
character, of the duplicity of his life, if it were that, impressed him
with the existence in her mind of some quality as rare and mysterious as
electricity, a real psychic gift, perhaps. It gave him an instant's
pause. Instinctively he feared a more definite arraignment. He began a
little more seriously, now, to match his cleverness against her
intuition; and, for the first defense, he employed a move of masculine
coquetry.
"You have been thinking of me, then?"
"Yes," she replied simply, "I have thought about you a good deal since I
was in your studio. But I suppose you're used to hearing things like
that from women." She was apologetic, rather than sarcastic.
He shrugged his shoulders. He seemed to be able to make no way against
her directness. "I've thought not a little of you, too, Miss Payson.
You are wonderfully psychic and sensitive. I think you should develop
your power--you might be able to do extraordinary things with it. I
wish you'd let me help you. That is," he added humorously, "if I'm not
too far gone in your disapproval."
"Oh, the disapproval--I call it that for want of a better word--isn't so
important as the fact that I should feel it at all, don't you see? You
remember that you told me I was the kind of a woman who, if she liked a
man, would tell him so, freely. That is true. I would scorn to stoop
to the immemorial feminine tricks. I do like you, and in spite of what
I can't quite explain, too. I don't know why, either. It seems as if
it's a part of that other feeling I've mentioned--that I've been with
you, or near you, before."
He leaned forward to extort more of this delicious confession from her.
"Do you mean spiritually, or merely physically near?"
"Oh, I don't mean an 'elective affinity' or anything so occult as that,"
she laughed. "Indeed, I don't quite know what I do mean--it's all so
vague. I can't formulate it. It escapes me when I try. But I did
know, for instance, quite definitely, that I'd see you again. I tell
you about it only because I think that you, with your power in that way,
may be able to understand it and explain it to me."
He thought he saw his chance, now, and instinctively he began to pose,
letting his eyes deepen and burn on her. He nodded his head and said
impressively:
"Yes. I have felt it, too, Miss Payson. It's wonderful to think that
you should have recognized me and understood me so well. No one ever
has before. We are related by some tie--I'm sure we've met before,
somewhere, somehow--"
She jumped up and stood before him, her hands tightly held, her lips
pressed together. For a moment, so, she looked hard at him; then what
there had been of anger in her gaze softened to something like sadness
or pity.
"_That's_ what I meant!"
He misunderstood her remark and her attitude and went still farther
astray from her meaning.
"You are not like any other woman I have ever known," he said, in the
same soulful way.
"Why can't you be honest with me!" she broke out. She was astonishingly
alive now; there was no trace of her former languor. He winced at
realizing, suddenly, and too late, that he had made a false step.
"Why do you make me regret having been frank?" she went on, with a
despairing throb in her voice. "You have almost succeeded in making me
ashamed of myself, already. _That_ is just what I disapprove of in you.
Don't imagine that you can ever deceive me with such sentimentality. I
shall always know when you're straightforward and simple. That's what
I've been trying to make you understand--that I _do_ know!"
She turned slowly away from him, almost hopelessly. For a moment she
remained immobile, then before he had recovered his wits, she had
modified the situation for him. Her eyes drifted back to his as she
remarked thoughtfully:
"I am sure, too, that you could help me, if you would."
"How?" He tried to pull himself together.
"Merely by being honest with me."
He raised his eyebrows.
"Oh, I know that's a good deal to ask," she laughed.
"Of me?"
"Of any one."
"I'll try, Miss Payson," he said, not too seriously. "But you've
frightened me. I don't dare think too hard about anything, you're such
a witch."
She released him graciously and keyed down to an easier tone.
"You must forgive me if I've been too frank, Mr. Granthope, but this
interview is almost like a first meeting, and you know how much one is
apt to say in such a situation. Let's not continue the discussion--I'm
embarrassed enough already. I know I shall regret what I've said.
We'll talk of something pleasanter. Tell me about that pretty girl in
your office."
"Oh!" he exclaimed, and his tone was as if he had said, "Aha!" He
wondered if it were possible that, after all, it was only this which had
moved her to speak.
Clytie frowned, but if she read his thought, she let it go unchallenged.
"She's an original little thing; I like her," she added.
"You do?" he said mischievously exaggerating his surprise.
"Yes, I do. Don't think I'm trying to patronize her, but she's a
dear--and she's very pretty."
"Do you think so? I shall have to tell her that. She's pretty enough,
at least, to have been on the stage. She was in vaudeville for a couple
of years. I first got acquainted with her at the Orpheum. I've known
her a long time. She's a great help and a great comfort to me, and a
very clever girl."
"How long has she been your assistant?"
"Two years."
"And you haven't fallen in love with her yet?"
Granthope was relieved. He was sure now that she was, if not jealous,
suspicious of his relations with Fancy. It was not the first time he
had encountered such insinuations.
"Oh, not in the least," he said. "I can give you my word as to that. I
don't think it ever occurred to me--though I'd do anything in the world
for her."
"And I suppose you're as sure of her immunity?"
"Why, of course," said Granthope, and in his tone there was the ring of
masculine assurance.
Clytie smiled and shook her head. "There are some things men never can
know, no matter how clairvoyant they are," she said, looking away.
He did not follow this up, but arose to leave. "I'm afraid you have a
very poor opinion of me, Miss Payson," he said, "but I do feel
complimented by your frankness. Perhaps I shall merit it--who knows?"
It was his turn to address the distance, and, in spite of his
consciousness of an histrionic effect, his own words sounded curiously
in his ears; they seemed premonitory. He shook himself free from her
influence again. She had controlled the situation from the first word;
he had only made a series of mistakes. It all confirmed his first
estimate of her: that she was very well worth his while, but that her
capture would be difficult.
Clytie, too, had arisen. Her mood had lightened, and her sense of humor
had returned. "I hope I haven't been either tragic or absurd," she
said, smiling. "I'm not always so serious, Mr. Granthope. The next
time I meet you I'll probably be more conventional."
"Then I may see you again?"
"I doubt if you can help it."
"I shall certainly not try to!" Then he paused. "You mean--?"
"Yes!"
There was something delightful to him in this rapid transfer of wordless
thought. It again established an intimacy between them. That she
acknowledged such a relation by anticipating another meeting, an
inevitable one, charmed him the more. He might win, after all, with
such assistance from her. Her power of intuition aroused his
curiosity--he longed to experiment with it. She was a new plaything
which he had yet to learn to handle. Before, he had dominated her
easily enough; he might do so again.
"Miss Payson," he said, "won't you come down to my studio again
sometime? I'd like to make a more careful examination of your hand, and
perhaps I can help you in developing your psychic sense."
"Oh, no, thank you. Really, I can't come again--I shall be pretty busy
for a while--I have to go to the Mercantile Library every afternoon,
looking up material for my father's book--and, after all, I got what I
wanted."
"What did you want?"
"Partly to see you."
He bowed. "Curiosity?"
"Let's call it interest."
"You had no faith, then, in my palmistry?"
"Very little."
"Yet you acknowledge that I told you some things that were true?"
"Haven't I told you several things about yourself, too?"
"I'd like to hear more."
"Oh, I've said too much, already."
"Let's see. That I am more or less of a villain--"
"But a most interesting one!"
"That I have met you before--"
"Not perhaps 'met'--"
"That Fancy Gray is in love with me--"
"Oh, I didn't say that!"
"But you suspect it?"
"If I did, it was impertinent of me. It's none of my business."
"Well, you won't come again--you've quite satisfied your curiosity by
seeing me?"
"Quite. I've confirmed all my suspicions."
"What were they?"
Clytie laughed. "Really, you're pushing me a little too hard, Mr.
Granthope. I'd be glad to have you call here, sometime, if you care to.
But my psychic powers are quite keen enough already. They rather
frighten me. I want them only explained. As I say, it's embarrassing,
sometimes. I hate to speak of what I feel--it's all so groundless and
it sounds silly."
"You know more, then, than you mention?"
"Oh, much!"
"About me, for instance?"
"Yes. But it's vague and indefinite. It needn't worry you."
"Even though you disapprove?"
She laughed again. "You may take that as a compliment, if you like."
He nodded. "It is something that you care."
"I'm mainly curious to see what you'll do--"
"Oh, you're expecting something, then?"
"I'm watching to see. I confess I shall watch you. I said that you
interested me--that's what I mean. You're going to--well, change."
As she stood between him and the light her soft hair showed as fine and
crisp as spun glass. Her lips were sensitively curved with a flitting
smile, her eyes were dreamy again. Everything about her bespoke a high
spiritual caste, but, to Granthope, this only accented the desirability
of her bodily self--it would make her the greater prize, unlike anything
he had, so far, been able to win. He had an epicure's delight in
feminine beauty, and he knew how its flavor should be finely tinctured
by mind and soul; even beauty was not exciting without that, and of mere
beauty he had his fill. Besides, she had unexpected reserves of emotion
that he was continually tempted to arouse. But so far he had hopelessly
misplayed his part, and he longed to prove his customary skill with
women.
"Well," he said finally, offering his hand, "I hope I'll be able to
satisfy you, sooner or later. I'll come, soon, for a report!"
"Oh, my mood may have changed, by that time."
He gave her the farewell amenities and went down the path to the gate.
There he turned and saw her still watching him. He waved his hat and
went down the steps, his mind restless with thoughts of her.
Clytie remained a while in the arbor. The fog had begun to come in now
with a vanguard of light fleecy clouds riding high in the air, closing
the bay in from all sides. The massive bank behind followed slowly,
tinted with opal and rose from the setting sun. It settled down,
shutting out her sight of the water, and its cohorts were soon scurrying
past her on their charge overland from ocean to harbor. The siren at
Point Bonita sighed dismally across the channel. It soon grew too cold
to remain longer in the garden, and she went into the house shivering,
lighted an open fire in the library and sat down.
For half an hour she sat there in silence, inert, listless, lost in
thought, her eyes on the blurred landscape mystic with driving fog. The
room grew darker, illuminated only by the fitful flashes of the fire.
Her still, relaxed figure, fragile and delicate as an ivory carving, was
alternately captured and hidden by the shadow and rescued and restored
by the sudden gleam from the hearth. She had not moved when her
father's step was heard in the hall. He came in, benignly sedate. His
deep voice vibrated through the room.
"Well, Cly, dreaming again?"
She started at the sound and came out of her reverie to rise and greet
him affectionately. He put down some books and a package of papers and
lighted the chandelier, exchanging commonplaces with her--of her
bookbinding work, which she confessed to have shirked; of the weather,
with a little of old age's querulous complaint of rheumatic touches; of
the black cat, which was their domestic fetish and (an immortally
interesting topic to him) of the vileness and poisonous quality of San
Francisco illuminating gas. His voice flowed on mellifluously with
unctuous authority, as he seated himself in his arm-chair beneath the
lamp, shook out his evening paper and rattled its flapping sheets.
Clytie evinced a mild interest in his remarks, smiled gently at his
familiar vagaries, answering when replies should be forthcoming, in her
low, even, monotonously pitched tones. She questioned him perfunctorily
about the book he was writing, an absorbing avocation with him, warding
off his usual disappointment at her lack of sympathy by involving
herself in a conversational web of explanation regarding Foreign Trade
Expansion, Reciprocal Profits and The Open Door in the Orient.
"There's not much use working on it at the office," he concluded. "I'm
too liable to interruptions."
"Who interrupted you to-day?" she asked.
"Oh, there was a queer chap in this afternoon, an insurance solicitor;
Wooley, his name was. I told him I didn't want an accident policy, but
I happened to tell him about that time on the Oakland Mole, when I got
caught between two trains in the Fourth of July crush--you remember? and
he told me about all the narrow escapes he ever heard of, trying to get
me to go into his company. Funny dog he was. He kept me laughing and
talking with him for an hour. Then Blanchard came in. He says he's
coming around to-night." He hesitated and scanned her intently through
his gold-bowed glasses, under his bushy brows. "I hope you will treat
him well, Cly."
Her face grew serious and her sensitive lips quivered, as she said:
"Why do you like Mr. Cayley so much, father?"
"Why, he's a very intelligent fellow, Cly; I don't know of another young
man of his age who is really worth talking to. He knows things. He has
a broad outlook and a serious mind. He's the kind of young man we need
to take hold of political and commercial reform. I tell you, the
country is going to the dogs for lack of men who are interested in
anything outside of their own petty concerns. Why, he's the only one I
know who really seems interested in oriental trade and all its
development means to the Pacific slope. That's remarkable, considering
he isn't himself connected with any commercial enterprise. I don't know
what I'd do if I didn't have him to discuss my subject with. He seems
to be genuinely interested in it. I wish you were as much so, Cly!"
Clytie turned away, smiling somewhat ironically, an uncommon expression
for her engaging features.
"You know," she said slowly, "that I don't quite trust him."
"Why, you two have been friends long enough, you should know him better
by this time. You're intimate enough with him."
"Oh, it's only a feeling I have. You know I have my intuitions--but
what friendship there is has been of his seeking."
"He's all right, Cly," her father said dictatorially. "I haven't lived
in the West for fifty years without knowing something of men. I do want
you to learn to appreciate him. He's got a future before him and he is
certainly fond of you. You know, if anything did come of it, I would--"
Clytie arose abruptly. "I think dinner's almost ready, father, and I'm
hungry. Are you ready?"
She was imperious, holding her tawny head erect, her chin high, her
hands clasped behind her back, the willowy suppleness of her body now
grown rigid. Mr. Payson sighed resignedly, and allowed a moment's
silence to speak for him; then, finding that his daughter's attitude
continued to dominate the situation, he, too, arose, patted her cheek
and shook his head. This pantomime coaxed forth a gracious smile from
her. He took his manuscripts and left to go up to his room. Clytie
remained at the window till he returned.
They had nearly finished their dinner, when, after a casual dialogue,
she remarked, without looking at him:
"Father, do you remember anything about an old crazy woman who lived
down south of Market Street somewhere, years ago--in a cheap hotel, I
think it was?"
He started at her question and his voice, ordinarily so calm and so
mellow, quavered slightly.
"What do you mean? Who was she?" he asked earnestly.
"That's what I want to know," Clytie said, stirring her coffee.
"What do you know about her?"
"Why--I went to see her once."
"_You_ went to see her? When?"
"Then you _did_ know her!"
Mr. Payson spoke cautiously, watching his daughter. "I have heard about
her, yes, but I never knew you had been there. How in the world did
that happen? It must have been a long time ago." He stared as if he
could scarcely believe her assertion.
"Mother took me there once or twice. It's almost the first thing I
remember."
"She did? She never told me! It's strange you have never mentioned it
before."
"Perhaps I oughtn't to mention it now. I thought, somehow, that she
wouldn't want me to tell you about it."
His tone now was disturbed, anxious, pitched in a higher key.
"Why shouldn't you speak of it? What difference could it possibly make?
I remember that woman, yes. She was not old, though. Do you recall her
well? You were very young then."
"I can almost see her now. She had white hair and black eyebrows, with
a vertical line between them; she was pale, but with bright red lips.
She wore a strange red gown. I think she must have been very beautiful
at one time. Who was she, father?" Clytie sent a calm, level glance at
him.
"Oh, she was a friend of your mother's. Your mother and I used to keep
track of her and help her, that's all."
"Was she poor, then?"
"No, she wasn't. That was the queer part of it. She had considerable
ability and actually carried on a real estate business, though she was
pretty mad. She had lucid intervals, though, when she was as reasonable
as any one."
"What became of her?"
"She died, I think, of heart disease. It must have been the same year
your mother died, if I remember rightly."
"What was her name?"
Mr. Payson grew more nervous at this questioning, but he replied, "They
called her Madam Grant, I believe. How did you happen to bring up the
subject after all these years, Cly?"
It was her turn to be embarrassed. "Well--I've recalled that scene
occasionally, and wondered about it--it has always been a mystery I
couldn't explain, and I never dared talk about it. Of course, it's only
one of those vivid early pictures of childhood, but it has always seemed
very romantic."
"It was a strange situation," Mr. Payson replied. "She was a very
unfortunate woman and I was sorry for her. I never would have permitted
you to go, if I had known, of course, but perhaps your mother knew
best." He dropped his chin upon his hand. "Yes, I'm glad you went,
now. What impression did she make on you?"
"I only remember thinking how beautiful she must have been."
"Yes," Mr. Payson's voice was almost inaudible. He pushed his chair
back, rose and went into the library. Clytie followed him.
"Are you going out to-night, father?"
"Yes, I've got some business to attend to."
"In the evening?" she raised her brows.
"Oh, I'm only looking up something--for my book." He turned away to
avoid her gaze.
"Oh!" She sat down and took up a book without questioning him further.
Soon after, the front doorbell rang and Mr. Cayley was shown in by the
Chinese servant.
Blanchard Cayley was well known about town, for he had a place in many
different coteries. By his birth he inherited a position in a select
Southern set that had long monopolized social standing and looked
scornfully down upon the upstart railroad aristocracy and that _nouveau
riche_ element which was prominent chiefly through the notoriety
conferred by the newspapers. Blanchard Cayley's parts gained him the
entree, besides, to less conventional circles, where his wit and
affability made him a favorite. He belonged to two of the best clubs,
but his inclinations led him to dine usually at French or Italian
restaurants, where good-fellowship and ability distinguished the
company. He wrote a little and knew the best newspaper men and all the
minor poets in town. He drew a little, and was familiar with all the
artists. He accounted himself a musical critic and cultivated
composers. He knew San Francisco like a rat, knew it as he knew the
intricacies of French forms of verse, as well as he knew the
architecture of music and the history of painting. He had long ceased
his nocturnal meanderings "down the line" from the Hoffman Bar to Dunn's
saloon, but he occasionally took a post-graduate course, of sorts, to
see whether, for the nonce, the city was wide open or shut. He had
discovered the Latin Quarter, now well established as a show-place for
jaded pleasure-seekers, and had played _bocce_ with the Italians in the
cellars of saloons, before the game was heard of by Americans. He had
found the marionette theater in its first week, traced every one of
Stevenson's haunts before the Tusitala had died in Samoa, knew the
writings of "Phoenix" almost by heart, and had devoured half the
Mercantile Library. Tar Flat and the Barbary Coast he knew as well as
the Mission and North Beach, and as for Chinatown, he had ransacked it
for queer jars, jade and hand-made jewelry, exhausting its possibilities
long before San Franciscans had realized the presence, in that quarter,
of anything but an ill-smelling purlieu of tourists' bazaars.
He had "discovered" women as well--women, for the most part, whose
attractions few other persons seemed to appreciate. His last find was
Clytie Payson--a much more valuable tribute to his taste than any
heretofore. He had devoted himself assiduously to her, and it was his
boast that he could remember the hat she wore when he first saw her, ten
years before. His pursuit of her had been eccentric. Cayley was
mathematical and his methods were built upon a system. During the first
years of their acquaintance he alternated months of neglect with
picturesque arrivals on nights so tempestuous and foul that his presence
would be sure to be counted as a flattering tribute, and would outweigh,
with his obvious devotion, the previous languor of his pursuit. This
was a fair sample of the subtlety of his psychological amours, for
Blanchard Cayley was not of the temperament to run across the room and
kiss a girl with verve and ardor. He led, however, an intense mental
life; there he was a creature of enthusiasms and contempts, capable of
no intermediate emotion.
What else was true of his character it would be necessary to determine
from the several ladies of his choice whom he kept carefully apart,
recipients of his subdivided confidence. Blanchard Cayley did not
introduce female contemporaries.
He wore a carefully trimmed, reddish, Vandyke beard, with a drooping
mustache; his hair curled a bit effeminately. Large blue eyes, the
well-developed nose of the hobbyist, hands of a sixteenth-century
gentleman, aristocratic, well-kept, soft. To-night he was in
half-dress--dinner jacket and gold studs, an inch wide stripe upon his
trousers--this under a yellow mackintosh and cricket cap, in strict
accordance with his own ideas of form.
Mr. Payson was in the library still busy with his manuscript when he
entered. The two shook hands. Blanchard's manner had in it something of
a survival of the old school. He was never awkward, yet never
bombastic. Suave, rather, with a semi-humorous touch that relieved his
courtesy of anything solemn. He smiled, showing his teeth, saying, with
an appearance of great interest,
"Well, Mr. Payson, I see you're still at it. How's _The Open Door in
the Orient_?"
"Oh, getting on," said Mr. Payson. "I want to read you my last chapter
when I get a chance. I think you'll like it."
Cayley had been successful in appearing to listen, and at the same time
pay his respects to Clytie, whose hand he did not let go without a
personal pressure in addition to the visible greeting. He kept it an
unpleasant half-second longer than had Granthope. She freed herself with
a slight gesture of discomfort. "Perhaps I'd better go up-stairs and
leave you men alone to talk it over," she suggested.
"Certainly not," said her father. "I'll wait until some other time,
only I thought Blanchard would be interested."
"Indeed, I am," Cayley protested. "I'm very anxious to hear your
opinion about gold, too. I have something to suggest, myself. Oh!" He
delved into his breast pocket. "Here are some notes on the history of
the trade dollar, Mr. Payson. You know I was speaking of it. I've been
looking up the subject at the mint and at the library for you; I think
it might give you some ideas."
Mr. Payson took the paper eagerly and pushed up his spectacles to
examine it. "Thank you; thank you very much. I'll be glad to look it
over. It's a pleasure to find any one nowadays who's so interested in
what is going to be a very vital question. You'll find my cigars here,
somewhere. Cly, you go and find the box, won't you?"
As Clytie disappeared in the direction of the dining-room, he added,
"You must humor her, Blanchard, she's a bit skittish. Don't force her
hand and I think you'll bring her around."
"Thanks for the tip, but I have my idea," was the reply. "It's only a
question of time when I shall be able to produce the psychological
condition I want."
Mr. Payson shook his head dubiously. "I don't know. That isn't the way
we went about it when I was young. We didn't bother much with
psychology then. We had emotions to attend to."
"Oh, love-making is just as much a science as anything else, and there
is no reason why it shouldn't progress. There are modern methods, you
know; it's only a form of hypnotism." He smiled blandly.
When he and Clytie were alone--a situation she seemed to delay as much
as possible--Cayley sat down opposite her with an ingratiating,
disarming smile. He was neither eager nor impressive. He was sure of
himself. It did not, as he had said, seem to matter a great deal about
her emotions; he scarcely considered her otherwise than as a mind whose
defenses he was to overthrow in an intellectual contest. He began with
elaborate circumlocution.
"Well, I've discovered something."
Her delicate eyebrows rose.
"It is a curious botanical fact that there are four thousand lamp-posts
in the city of San Francisco."
"Why botanical?"
"That is just what I expected you to ask."
"Then I'll not ask it." She was already on the defense.
"But you did!"
"Well?" She appeared to resent his tone.
"Now, see here!" He laid his right forefinger to his left palm.
"Suppose a Martian were visiting the earth. He wouldn't at first be
able to distinguish the properties of things. So, seeing these four
thousand lamp-posts, he might consider them as a part of the Terrene
flora--queer trees."
It was like a game of chess, and it was evident that she could not
foresee his next move. The detour was too complicated. She seemed, by
her attitude, to be on her guard, but allowed him, with a nod of assent,
to proceed.
"Now, suppose you have the Martian, or let us call it the uncorrelative
point of view. Suppose you use brain-cells that have hitherto been
quiescent or undeveloped."
"I don't exactly follow." Her attention wandered.
He probed it. "Suppose I should get up and kiss you."
She awoke suddenly.
"You see what I mean now?" he continued. "You exploded a new cell then.
You gained a new point of view with regard to me. Don't be afraid. I'm
not going to kiss you."
"Indeed, you're not!" Her alarm subsided; her resentment, rising to an
equal level, was drawn off in a smile at the absurdity of the
discussion.
He went on: "But you must acknowledge that I have, at least, produced a
psychological condition. I'm going to use that new cell again." He
waited for her answer.
"Dear me!" she exclaimed at last. "We're getting very far away from the
lamp-posts. I'm quite in the dark."
He proceeded: "My character is lighted by four thousand lamp-posts
also."
"Ah, I see! You want me to regard them as botanical facts. I, as a
supposititious Martian, with this wonderful new cell, am to perceive in
you something that is not true?"
"No, for in Mars, the lamp-posts, we will suppose, _are_ vegetables--not
mechanical objects."
"A little more light from the lamp-posts, please."
"They are emotions, alive and growing. They have heat as well as light,
in spite of their subtleties. I want you to perceive the fact that my
methodical nature shows that I have a determined, potent stimulus--that
I have energy--that I am in earnest."
She seemed to sniff the danger now and stood at gaze. He went on:
"I shall keep at the attempt until you do look at me in this way--till
I've educated these dormant cells."
"If you are leading up to another proposal," Clytie said, "I must say I
admire your devotion to method, but it is time thrown away."
He took this calmly enough. He took everything calmly; but he did not
abate his persistence. "I'm not leading up to a proposal so much as I
am to an acceptance."
Clytie shrugged her shoulders. "You'll be telling me you're in love
with me next."
"Do you doubt it?"
"A half-dozen proposals have not convinced me."
"Seven," he corrected. "This is the eighth."
"How long do you intend to keep it up?"
"Until I produce in your mind a psychological condition which will
convince you that I'm in earnest, that I am sincere, that I am the man
for you. Then I shall produce an emotional reflex--it's sure to follow.
It may come to-night and it may come next year. Sooner or later
circumstances will bring about this crystallization. Some shock may
help; it may be a simple growth. I am sure to win you in the long run.
I'm bound to have you, and I will, if I have to make a hundred attempts.
You can't dismiss me, for I'm an old friend and you need me. I have
educated you, I have broadened your horizon. You see, I am playing with
my cards on the table."
"But without trumps." Clytie stifled a yawn.
"Meaning, I suppose, that I have no heart? Clubs may do. I rely upon
your atavism."
"I suppose you have as much heart as can be made out of brain."
"What if I say that I'm jealous? Will that prove that I have a heart?"
"Oh, you're too conceited ever to be jealous."
"But I am! I'll prove it. I happen to know that that palmist person,
Granthope, was here this afternoon and you spent half an hour with him.
How's that?"
"How do you know?" She awoke to a greater interest.
"You don't seem to realize that I make it my business to know all about
you. This came by accident, though. I was on the Hyde Street car and I
saw him get off and come in here. I waited at the end of the road till
he went back. Now, what if I should tell your father that you have been
entertaining a faking palmist here, on the sly?" He leaned back and
folded his hands.
Clytie rose swiftly and walked to the door without a look at him.
"Father," she called, "Mr. Cayley has something to say to you."
"Never mind," Cayley protested. "That was merely an experiment."
Mr. Payson, in overcoat and silk hat, thrust a mildly expectant head in
the room.
"It was only about the trade dollar business," said Cayley. "I'll tell
you some other time."
Mr. Payson withdrew, scenting no mischief, and Clytie sat down without a
word.
"Thought you'd call my bluff, did you?" said Cayley, unruffled. "I like
spirit!"
"If you don't look out you'll succeed in boring me." Clytie's manner
had shown an amused scorn rather than resentment. She was evidently not
afraid of him.
"You're fighting too hard to be bored," he remarked coolly. He added,
"Then you are interested in him, are you?"
"I am." Clytie looked him frankly in the face.
"Why?" he asked.
"I've heard a lot about him and he appeals to my imagination. I
scarcely think I need to apologize for it. Have you any objection to my
knowing him?"
"I'd rather you wouldn't get mixed up with him; since he's been taken up
the women are simply crazy about him, as they always are about any
charlatan. They're all running after him and calling on him and ringing
him up at all hours. Why, Cly, they actually lie in wait for him at his
place; trying to get a chance to talk to him alone. I don't exactly see
you in that class, that's all. You can scarcely blame me."
"Oh, I haven't rung him up yet," said Clytie, "but there's no knowing
what I may do, of course, with all my unexploded brain-cells."
"How did he happen to come here, then?"
"He came to see me, I suppose."
Cayley accepted the rebuff gracefully. "Well, in another month, when
some one else comes along, people will drop him with a thud. He's a
nine days' wonder now, but he's too spectacular to last. This is a
great old town! We need another new fakir now that the old gentleman in
the Miller house has stopped his Occult Brotherhood in the drawing-room
and his antique furniture repository in the cellar. I haven't heard of
anything so picturesque since that Orpheum chap caught the turnips on a
fork in his teeth, that were tossed from the roof of the Palace Hotel.
I suppose I'll have a good scandal about Granthope, pretty soon, to add
to my collection."
Clytie accepted the diversion, evidently only too glad to change the
subject. "What collection?" she asked.
"My San Francisco Improbabilities. I've got a note-book full of
them--things no sane Easterner would believe possible, and no novelist
dare to use in fiction."
"Oh, yes, I remember your telling me. What are they? One was that
house made entirely of doors, wasn't it?"
"Yes, the 'house of one hundred and eighty doors' at the foot of Ninth
Street. Then, there is the hulk of the _Orizaba_ over by the Union Iron
Works, where 'Frank the Frenchman' lives like a hermit, eats swill and
bathes in the sewage of the harbor. Then there's 'Munson's Mystery' on
the North beach--nobody has ever found out who Munson is. And Dailey,
the star eater of the Palace Hotel--he used to have four canvas-back
ducks cooked, selected one and used only the juice from the others; he
ordered soup at a dollar a plate; and he had a happy way of buying a
case of champagne with each meal, drinking only the top glass from each
bottle."
Clytie laughed now, for Cayley was in one of his most amusing and
enthusiastic moods. "Do you remember that tramp who lived all summer in
the Hensler vault in Calvary Cemetery?"
"Yes, but that isn't so impossible as Kruger's castle out in the
sand-hills by Tenth Avenue. It's a perfect jumble of job-lot buildings
from the Mid-winter Fair, like a nightmare palace. I went out there
once and saw old Mother Kruger, so tortured with rheumatism that she had
to crawl round on her hands and knees. She had only one tooth left. The
old man is one of the last of the wood-engravers and calls himself the
Emperor of the Nations. He has resurrected Hannibal and an army of two
hundred thousand men; also he revived Pompeii for three days. He wanted
to bring Mayor Sutro back to life for me, but I wouldn't stand for it."
Cayley swept on with his anecdotes. "Who would believe the story of
'Big Bertha,' who buncoed all the swellest Hebrews in town, and ended by
playing Mazeppa in tights at the Bella Union Theater? Who has written
the true story of Dennis Kearney, the hack-driver, who had his speeches
written for him by reporters, and went East with a big head,
unconsciously to plagiarize Wendell Phillips in Fanueil Hall? Or of
'Mammy' Pleasant, the old negress who had such mysterious influence over
so many millionaires--who couldn't be bribed--who died at last, with all
her secrets untold? There's Romance in purple letters!
"What do you think of a first folio Shakespeare, the rent-roll of
Stratford parish, and a collection of Incunabula worth thirty thousand
dollars, kept in the deserted library on Montgomery Street in a case, by
Jove, without a lock! What's the matter with Little Pete, the Chinaman,
jobbing all the race-tracks in California? Who'd believe that there are
streets here, within a mile of Lotta's fountain, so steep that they
pasture cows on the grass?"
"Then there's Emperor Norton, and the Vigilance Committee, and all the
secrets of the Chinatown slave trade," Clytie contributed, with aroused
interest.
"Oh, I'm not speaking of that sort of thing. That's been done, and the
East and England think that Romance departed from here with the
red-shirted miner. Everybody knows about the Bret Harte type of
adventure. It's the things that are going on now or have happened
within a few years--like finding that Chinese woman's skeleton upside
down, built into the wall of the house on the corner of Powell and
Sutter; like Bill Dockery, the food inspector, who terrorized the San
Bruno road, like a new Claude Duval, holding up the milkmen with a
revolver and a lactometer, and went here, there and everywhere, into
restaurants and hotels all over the peninsula, dumping watered milk into
the streets till San Francisco ran white with it."
"Then there's Carminetti's," Clytie recalled, now. "That's modern
enough, and typical of San Francisco, isn't it? I mean not so much
what's done there, as the way they do it. I've always wanted to go down
there some Saturday night and see just what it's like."
"I wouldn't want you to be seen there, Cly, it wouldn't do." Cayley
shook his head decidedly.
"Why wouldn't it do?"
"It's a little too lively a crowd. You'd be disgusted, if they happened
to hit things up a bit, as they often do."
"I don't see why I shouldn't be privileged to see what is going on.
It's a part of my education, isn't it? It's all innocent enough, from
what you say; it's at worst nothing but vulgar. I think I am proof
against that."
"People would get an altogether wrong opinion of you. They'd think you
were fast."
"I fast?" Clytie smiled. "I think I can risk that. I shouldn't probably
want to go more than once, it's true. You don't know me, that's all.
You don't believe that I can go from one world of convention to another
and accept the new rules of life when it's necessary. It's just for
that reason that I _do_ wish to go--as, when I went to London, I wanted
to see if I could accept all their slow, poky methods of business and
transportation and everything and find out the reason of it all for
myself, before I thought of criticizing it. I want to understand
Carminetti's, if I can, and if you won't take me, I'll find some one who
will."
"Granthope, perhaps?" Cayley suggested with irony.
"I have no doubt he'd understand my motives better than you do!"
"Well, it might be an interesting experiment. Miss Payson at
Carminetti's--there's a San Francisco contrast for you!"
"You may add it to your list of Improbabilities. Study me, if you like,
and put me in your list. You may find that I have a surprise or two
left for you." She smiled to herself and threw back her head proudly.
"You do tempt me to try it," he said, coolly watching her. "You'd look
as inconsistent there as those old French family portraits in that
saloon out on the Beach--Lords of Les Baux, they were, I believe,
administrators of the high justice, the middle and the low!
"And, oh!" he added, "that reminds me of another thing I found to-day
while I was looking over a file of the _Chronicle_, digging up this
trade dollar business. It was way back in 1877; a queer story, but I
suppose it's true."
"What was it?" Clytie asked. The rays of the lamp shot her hair with
gold sparks as she sat in a low chair, listening.
"Why, there was an old woman who was half crazy; she lived down south of
Market Street somewhere in the most fearful squalor."
Clytie suddenly moved back into the shadow.
"Yes, yes,--what else?" She followed his words with absorbed attention.
"There was no furniture except a lot of boxes and a bookcase. And
here's the remarkable thing: there was about two inches of rubbish and
dirt matted down all over the floor, where she used to hide money and
food and any old thing, wrapped in little packages. When she died, her
stuff was auctioned off, and they found a trunk with a whole new wedding
outfit in it. How's that?"
"What was her name?" Clytie asked breathlessly.
"I don't remember it. She was a sort of clairvoyant, I believe. There
was a little boy lived with her, too. It seems he disappeared after she
died. Ran away."
Clytie leaned forward again, her eyes wide open and staring. Her hands
were tightly clasped together.
"A little boy?" she repeated.
"Why, that's what it said in the paper. Great story, isn't it?"
Clytie's breath came and went rapidly, as if she were trying to breathe
in a storm, amidst the dashing of waves. The color went from her
cheeks, her thin nostrils dilated. Then, retreating into the shade
again, she managed to say:
"It certainly is romantic."
"No one would believe a thing like that could be true," he followed.
"No, I can scarcely believe it's possible, myself," she replied,
controlling her agitation.
Blanchard Cayley ran on and on with his talk. Clytie gave him scant
attention, answering in monosyllables.
*CHAPTER V*
*THE RISE AND FALL OF GAY P. SUMMER*
Two hours after leaving Granthope's studio, Mr. Gay P. Summer had
"dated" Fancy Gray. Mr. Summer was a "Native Son of the Golden West";
he had, indeed, risen to the honorable station of Vice President of the
Fort Point Parlor of that ecstatic organization. He was, in his modest
way, a leader of men, and aspired to a corresponding mastery over women.
In all matters pertaining to the pursuit and conquest of the fair sex,
Mr. Summer was prompt, ingenious and determined. Before two weeks were
over he was able to boast, to his room-mate, of Fancy's subjection.
Fancy herself might equally well have boasted of his. At the end of this
time he was, at least, in possession of her photograph, six notes
written in a backward, slanting penmanship, twelve words to the damask
page, with the date spelled out, a lock of hair (though this was arrant
rape), and one gray suede, left-hand glove. These he displayed, as
trophies of the chase, upon the bureau of his bedroom and defended them,
forbye, from the asteistic comments of his room-mate, an unwilling and
unconfessed admirer of Gay P. Summer's power to charm and subdue.
In those two weeks much had been done that it is not possible to do
elsewhere than in the favored city by the Golden Gate. A Sunday
excursion to the beach was the fruit of his first telephonic
conversation. There are beaches in other places, indeed, but there is no
other Carville-by-the-Sea. This capricious suburb, founded upon the
shifting sands of "The Great Highway," as San Francisco's ocean
boulevard is named, is a little, freakish hamlet, whose dwellings--one
could not seriously call them houses--are built, for the most part, of
old street-cars. The architecture is of a new order, frivolously
inconsequent. According to the owner's fancy, the cars are placed side
by side or one atop the other, arranged every way, in fact, except
actually standing on end. From single cars, more or less adapted for
temporary occupancy, to whimsical residences, in which the car appears
only in rudimentary fragments, a suppressed motif suggested by rows of
windows or by sliding doors, the owners' taste and originality have had
wanton range. Balconies jut from roofs, piazzas inclose sides and
fronts, cars are welded together, dovetailed, mortised, added as ells at
right angles or used terminally as kitchens to otherwise normal
habitations.
Gay P. Summer was, with his room-mate, the proprietor of a car of the
more modest breed. It was a weather-worn, blistered, orange-colored
affair that had once done service on Mission Street. The cash-box was
still affixed to the interior, the platform, shaky as it was, still
held; the gong above, though cracked, still rang. There was a partition
dividing what they called their living-room, where the seats did service
for bunks, from the kitchen, where they were bridged for a table and
perforated for cupboards. There was a shaky canvas arrangement over a
plank platform; and beneath, in the sand, was buried a treasure of beer
bottles, iron knives, forks and spoons and wooden plates.
Here, unchaperoned and unmolested, save by the wind and sun, Gay P.
Summer and Fancy Gray proceeded to get acquainted. They made short work
of it.
Fancy's velvet cheeks were painted with a fine rose color that day. Her
hair looked well in disorder; how much better it would have looked, had
it kept its natural tone, she did not realize. Her firm, white line of
zigzag teeth made her smile irresistible, even though she chewed gum.
Her eyes were lambent, flickering from brown to green; her lower lids,
shaded with violet, made them seem just wearied enough to give them
softness. None of this was lost on Gay.
He, too, was well-developed, masculine, agile, with a juvenile glow and
freshness of complexion that rivaled hers. His dress was jimp and
artful, with tie and socks of the latest and most vivid mode. Upon his
short, pearl, covert coat, he wore a mourning band, probably for
decoration rather than as a badge of affliction. His eyes were still
bright and clear without symptoms of dissipation. His laughter was good
to hear, but, as to his talk, little would bear repetition--slangy
badinage, the braggadocio of youth, a gay running fire of obvious retort
and innuendo, frolic and flirtations. That Fancy appeared to enjoy it
should go without saying. She was not for criticism of her host and
entertainer that fine day. She let herself go in the way of gaiety he
led and slanged him jest for jest, for Fancy herself had a pert and
lively tongue.
Upon one point only did she fail to meet him. Not a word in regard to
her employer could he get from her. Again and again, Gay came back to
the subject of the palmist and his business secrets; Fancy parried his
queries every time. He tried her with flattery--she laughed in his
face. He attempted to lead her on by disclosing vivacious secrets of
his own life; his ammunition was only wasted upon her. He coaxed; he
threatened jocosely (she defended herself ably from his punitive kiss),
but her discretion was impregnable. She made merry at his expense when
he sulked. She tantalized him when he pleaded. Her wit was too nimble
for him and he gave up the attempt.
The stimulation of this first meeting went to Fancy's head. She laughed
like a child. She sang snatches from her vaudeville days and mimicked
celebrities. Gay dropped his pose of worldly wisdom and made shrieking
puns. They played like Babes in the Wood.
At seven o'clock, hungry and sun-burned, they walked along the beach to
the Cliff House and dined upon the glazed veranda, watching the surf
break on Seal Rocks. As they sat there in the dusk, haunted by an
elusive waiter, Gay waxed eloquent about himself, told of his high
office in the Native Sons, revealed the amount of his salary at the
bank, touched lightly upon his previous amours, bragged loftily of his
indiscretions at exuberant inebriated festivals, puffing magnificently
the while at a "two-bit" cigar.
Fancy paid for her meal by listening to him conscientiously, ejaculating
"No!" and "Yes?" or "Say, Gay, that's a josh, isn't it?" If her mind
wandered (Fancy was nobody's fool), he did not perceive it.
To their cocktails and California claret they now added a Benedictine,
and Gay grew still more confidential. The night fell, and the crowd
began to leave. They walked entirely round the hotel corridor, bought an
abalone shell split into layers of opalescent hues, then with a last
look at the sea-lions, barking in the surge, they walked for the train,
found a place in an open car and sat down, wedged into a hilarious
crowd, reveling in song and peanuts.
Disregarded was the superb view they passed. The train, skirting the
precipitous cliffs along the Golden Gate, commanded a splendor of
darkling water and tumultuous mountain distances, theatrical in beauty.
The sea splashed at the foot of the precipice beneath them. The hills
rose above their heads, the intermittent twinkle of lighthouses
punctuated the purple gloom. It was all lost upon them. Fancy's head
drooped to Gay's shoulder. He put his arm about her, cocking his hat to
one side that it might not strike hers as he leaned nearer. No one
observed them, no one cared, for every Jack had his Jill, and a simple,
primitive comradeship had settled upon the wearied throng. A baby
whined occasionally as the train lurched round the sharp curves of the
track. A riotous yell or two came from the misogynists of the smoking
compartment. Fancy did not talk. Gay's loquacity oozed away. He was
content to feel her breathing against his side.
There were telephone conversations often after that, then occasional
lunches down-town, when Fancy, always modishly dressed, drew many an eye
to her well-rounded, well-filled Eton jacket, her smart red hat, her
fresh white gloves and her high-heeled shoes. Gay was proud of her, and
he showed her off to his friends without caution. Fancy was nothing
loath. Occasionally they went to the theater, dining previously in
style at some popular restaurant, where Gay hoped that he might be seen
with her. To such as discovered them, he would bow with proud
proprietorship; or perhaps saunter over, on some flimsy pretext, to hear
his friends say, with winks and smiles:
"By Jove, that girl's all right, old man! She's a stunner. Say,
introduce me, will you?"
To which Gay would answer:
"Not on your folding bed! This is a close corporation, old man. I've
got that claim staked out, see? So long!" and walk away pleased.
At the theater, he always made a point of going out between the acts, in
order that his reentry might point more conspicuously at his conquest.
Afterward, at Zinkand's, having engaged a table beside which all the
world must pass, he would pose, apparently oblivious to the crowd,
talking to her with absorbed interest.
Fancy suffered the exhibition without displeasure. She had no objection
to being looked at. To make a picture of herself, to play the arch and
coquettish before a room of well-dressed folk was one of the things she
did best.
She was recognized occasionally and pointed out by one or another of
Granthope's patrons. "There she is; over behind
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/48984