"Good afternoon, Mr. Payson, I'm little Eva! I brought you some flowers, but you can't see 'em, 'cause they're spirit flowers. You don't look very well. Ain't you feelin' well to-day? I'm always well here, and it's lovely on this side."He made no response. Madam Spoll's soft hand, obviously controlled by her spirit guide, moved up Mr. Payson's arm and patted his cheek. He drew back suddenly."My!" little Eva exclaimed. "You frightened me! What a funny man you are! Won't you just let me smoove your hair, once? I'd love to. Oh, I think you're horrid! I'm just doin' to slap your face—there!" Which she did quite briskly.Mr. Payson loosened his hold with some annoyance."Well, I ain't doin' to stay if you don't love me," the shrill voice went on. "I don'tlikemen who don't love me. Good-by, old man, I'm doin'."There was another wriggle on the part of the medium, after which a lower-toned voice said:"How do you do! I'm Luella."He watched the medium's blank, expressionless face as she spoke."Say, you ain't well, I can see that. Haven't you got a pain in your leg? Excuse me saying it, but I can feel it right there."She touched him gently on the thigh."Oh, that's only a touch of rheumatism," he replied."No, it ain't," she said, "it's more serious than that. It's chronic, and it's growing worse. Sometimes it's so painful that you almost die of it, isn't it? I know where you got it; it come of an accident. I can see you in a big crowded house, like, and there's railroad trains coming and going, and you're crowded and jammed. You got internal injuries and a complication. You didn't realize it at the time, but it's growing worse every day. If you don't look out you'll pass out through it, but if you went right to work, you could be cured of it, before it gets too bad.""What could I do about it?" he asked. "The doctors don't help me much.""Of course they don't. You haven't been to the right ones. I was an Indian doctor, and I can see just what's the matter with you. You need a certain kind of herb I used to use when I was on the flesh-plane in Idaho.""Can't you help me, then?""Oh, I've got to go now, they're calling to me. So good-by." Another wriggle and Madam Spoll was herself again."Well, what did you get?" she asked when she recovered."Why, don't you know?""No more'n a babe unborn," she said. "I was in a dead trance, and I never remember anything that happens. I hope little Eva didn't tease you any.""Who is the other one—Luella?""Why, she's an Indian princess that passed out about ten years back. She's got a great gift of diagnosing cases. She's helped my sitters a good deal.""She told me something about my trouble.""You mean about the gray-haired lady or the child?""Oh, no, about my leg!""Did she, now? Well, what did I tell you! Seems to me youdolook peaked and pale, like you was enjoying poor health. I noticed it when you first come in. I don't believe your blood's good. Luella don't prescribe ordinarily, but she can diagnose cases something wonderful. If I should tell you how many doctors in this town send their patients to me to be diagnosed before they dare to treat them themselves, you'd be surprised. Why, only the other day a lady come in here that was give up by four doctors for cancer, and Luella found it was only a boil in her kidney. She went to a magnetic healer and was cured in a week. Now she's doing her own work and taking care of her babies, keeping boarders and plans to go camping this very month.""Who was the doctor?" Mr. Payson asked, much impressed."Doctor Masterson. He's up on Market Street somewhere. Perhaps I've got a card of his around. I'll see if I can find it."She walked over to the mantel and fussed among its dusty ornaments, saying, with apparent concern, as she rummaged:"I don't know as I ought to send you to Doctor Masterson, after all. You see, he ain't a man I like very much, and few do, I find. He don't stand very well with the Spiritual Society, nor with anybody else that I know of. He ain't quite on the square, do you understand what I mean? To be perfectly frank, I think he's a rascal. He has a bad reputation as a man, but all the same, he's a good medium, nobody deniesthat, and he does accomplish some marvelous cures! If Luella said your complaint was serious, she knows, and it looks to me like you must go to Doctor Masterson or die of it, for if he can't cure you, nobody can. He's certainly a marvelous healer."She found the card at last, and brought it over to Mr. Payson."Here it is, but you better not tell him I give it to you, for we ain't on very good terms, and I wouldn't want him to know that I was sending him business."As Mr. Payson rose to go, the medium stopped him with a gesture."Wait a minute," she said, passing her hand across her forehead. "Grace is here again and she says: Tell him that we're doing all we can on the spirit plane to help him and we want him to cheer up, for conditions are going to be more favorable in a little while, say, by the end of September.'"She paused a moment and then added:"Who's Clytie? Would that be the gray-haired lady?""What about Clytie?" He was instantly aroused."It don't seem to me like she's in the spirit, exactly. She's on the material plane. Let's see if I can get it more definite. Oh, Grace says she's your daughter.""That's true.""What do you think of that? I get it very plain now. Grace says she's watching over Clytie and will help her all she can.""Can't she tell me anything more?"The medium became normal. "No, I guess that's about all I can do for you to-day. I think you got some good tests, specially when you consider it was the first time. When you come again I expect we can do better, and I'm sure we can find that little boy you was interested in."Mr. Payson rose and stood before her, sedate, dignified, and said, in his impressive platform-manner:"I don't mind saying that I consider this very remarkable, Madam Spoll, very remarkable. I shall certainly call again sometime next week. I am much interested. Now, what is the charge, please?""Oh, we'll only call this three dollars. My price is generally five, but I'm sort of interested in your case and I want you to be perfectly satisfied. You can just ring me up any time and make an appointment with me."She bowed him out with a calm, pleasant smile.Down-stairs, Professor Vixley was awaiting her. With him was a shrewd-eyed, bald-headed, old man, with iron spectacles, his forehead wrinkled in horizontal lines, as if it had been scratched with a sharp comb. He had a three days' growth of red beard on his chin and cheeks, and his teeth, showing in a rift between narrow, bloodless lips, were almost black. He wore a greasy, plaid waistcoat, a celluloid collar much in need of the laundry and a ready-made butterfly bow."Why, how d'you do, Doctor Masterson?" said Madam Spoll. "I was hoping you would get around to-day, so's we could talk business. I suppose you put him wise about Payson, Vixley?""Certainly," said the Professor. "We're goin' to share and share alike, and work him together as long as it lasts. How did you get on with him to-day?""Oh, elegant," was the answer, as she took a seat on the couch and put up her feet. "I don't believe we're going to be able to use Flora, though."Professor Vixley's black eyes glistened and he grinned sensuously. "Why, couldn't you get a rise out of him?"Madam Spoll shook her huge head decidedly. "No, that sort of game won't work on him. He ain't that kind. I went as far as I dared and give him a good chance, but he wouldn't stand for it.""That's all right, Gert," said Vixley, "I ain't sayin' but what you're a fine figure of a woman, but he's sixty and he might prefer somebody younger. You know how they go. Now, Flora, she's a peach. She'd catch any man, sure! She knows the ropes, too, and she can deliver the goods all right. Look at the way she worked Bennett. Why, he was dead stuck on her the first time he seen her. She put it all over Fancy at the first rattle out of the box."Again Madam Spoll's crisp, iron-gray curls shook a denial. "See here, Vixley!" she exclaimed, "I ain't been in this business for eighteen years without getting to know something about men. Bennett was a very different breed of dog. I can see a hole in a ladder, and I know what I'm talking about. Payson ain't up to any sort of fly game. He's straight, and he's after something different, you take my word for that. If there was anything in playing him that way, I'd be the first one to steer him on to Flora Flint, but he'd smell a mice if she got gay with him and he'd be so leary that we couldn't do nothing more with him.""Well, whatdidyou get, then?" Vixley asked."Did you wire it up for me?" Doctor Masterson added."Oh, I fixed you all right, Doc. He'll show up at your place, sure enough. That accident tip worked all right and I got him going pretty good about his leg. He's got your card and I give you a recommendation, I don't think! You want to look out about what you say about me. We ain't on speaking terms, you understand, and you're a fakir, for fair. You can get back at me all you want, only don't draw it hard enough to scare him away."Doctor Masterson grinned, showing his line of black fangs, and stuck his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets placidly. "Oh, I'm used to being knocked, don't mind me. I'll charge him for it. If I'm going to be the villain of this here drama, I'll do it up brown.""Let's see now. I s'pose you can probably hold him about two months, can't you?" said Vixley, stroking his pointed black beard and spitting into the fireplace."Oh, not so long as that," said Madam Spoll. "We want to get to work on that book proposition. A month's plenty long enough. They ain't much money in it.""I don't know." Doctor Masterson shook his head. "I've strung 'em for six months many's the time.""Women, perhaps, but not men," said the Madam."Well, maybe. Men are liable to be in more of a hurry, of course.""And women ain't so much, with you, are they?"The two men laughed cynically."Oh, they's more ways to work women than men, that's all," the doctor replied. "They're more interested in their symptoms, and they like to talk about 'em. Then, again, they's a more variety of complaints to choose from. I don't say I ain't had some pretty cases in my day.""Say!" Madam Spoll interposed. "Who's having a circle to-night—Mayhew?""Let's see—it's Friday, ain't it? Yes, Mayhew and Sadie Crum," Vixley replied."Well, I s'pose we got to put 'em wise about Payson," said the Madam. "He's got the bug now and he's pretty sure to make the rounds.""Can't we keep him dark?" said Vixley. "He's our game and they might possibly ring him in.""No, that won't do," she answered emphatically. "We got to play fair. They've always been square with us, and they won't catch him, I'll see to that. Mayhew's straight enough and if Sadie tries to get gay with us, we can fix her and she knows it. And the more easy tests he gets, the better for us. It'll keep him going, and so long as they don't go too far, it'll help us. The sooner he gets so he don't want to impose test conditions, the better, and they can help convert him for us. I'll ring up Mayhew now. I've got a good hunch that Payson will show up there to-night."She raised her bulk from the couch and went to the telephone by the window, calling for Mayhew's number. When she had got it, she said:"Is this number thirty-one? ... Yes, I'm number fifteen.... Sure! Oh, pretty good! ... I got a tip for you. I'm playing a six-year-old for the handicap, named Oliver. Carries sixty pounds, colors blue and gray, ten hands, jockey is Payson. He's a ten-to-one shot. My wife Grace lived in Stockton. Do what you can for me, but keep your hands off, do you understand? Numbers forty and thirteen are with me in this deal and we'll fix it for you if you stand in ... yes, all right! If he shows up let me know to-morrow morning, sure."She turned to the two men. "I guess that's all right now.""What's all that about Stockton?" Vixley asked."He lived there once and there's something more about his wife or something. Mayhew may fish it out of him, and if he does I'll put you on.""I ain't seen him yet," said the doctor, "but I guess I'll recognize him. Sixty years old, Oliver Payson, one hundred and sixty pounds, blue eyes and gray hair, six feet tall. Are you sure he's a ten-to-one, though? That cuts more ice than anything.""Oh, sure!" said Madam Spoll. "Why, he swallowed the whole dose. He ain't doing no skeptic business. He thinks he's an investigator. Wait till you hear him talk and you'll understand. Not religious, you know, but a good old sort. He's caught all right, and if we jolly him along, we can polish him off good.""They ought to be some good materializin' graft in that wife proposition. Grace, was it? We might turn him over to Flora for that." This from Vixley."I've been thinking of that," said Madam Spoll, "but I don't know whether he'll stand for it or not. It won't be anywheres near the snap it was with Bennett, in full daylight, and we'll have to have special players. I believe I can put my hands on one or two that can help us out, though. Miss French for one; she's got four good voices. Then there's a young girl I got my eye on that'll do anything I say. She's slim and she can work an eight-inch panel as slick as soap; and she's got a memory for names and faces that beats the directory. Besides, I believe she's really psychic. I've seen her do some wonderful things at mind-reading.""No, can she really!" said Vixley."Oh, I used to be clairaudient myself when I begun," said Madam Spoll a little sadly. "I could catch a name right out of the air, half the time. I've gave some wonderful tests in my day, but you can't never depend upon it, and when you work all the week, sick or well, drunk or sober, you have to put water in the milk and then it's bound to go from you. You have to string 'em sooner or later. This girl's a dandy at it, though, but that'll all wait. There's enough to do before we get to that part of the game. I expect I had better go out and see Sadie Crum myself. I don't trust her telephone. She's got a ten-party line, what do you think of that?""A ten-party line don't do for business," said Vixley, "but it's pretty good for rubberin'. I've got some pretty good dope off my sister's wire. She spends pretty near all her time on it and it does come in handy.""Oh, pshaw!" Madam Spoll looked disgusted. "I ain't got time to spend that way. What's the use anyway? They ain't but one rule necessary to know in this business, and that is: All men is conceited, and all women is vain.""That's right!" Vixley assented. "Only I got another that works just as good; all women want to think they are misunderstood, and all men want to think they understand. Ain't that right, Doc?"Masterson grinned. "I guess likely you ought to know, if anybody does. But I got a little one of my own framed up, too. How's this? All men want to be heroes and all women want to be martyrs."The three laughed cynically together. They had learned their practical psychology in a thorough school. Madam Spoll chuckled for some time pleasantly."You're the one had ought to write a book, Masterson. I'll bet it would beat out Payson's!""Lord!" said Vixley. "If I was to write down the things that have happened to me, just as they occurred—""It wouldn't be fit to print," Madam Spoll added. Vixley looked flattered."How about that pickle-girl?" he asked next."What's that?" said Doctor Masterson."Oh, a new graft of Gertie's. Did she come, Gert?""I should say she did," Madam Spoll replied. "And I got her on the string staking out dopes, too. Why, she's mixed up with a fellow at the Risdon Iron Works, and she don't dare to say her soul's her own since she told me.""Nothin' like a good scandal to hold on to people by," Masterson remarked. "Where'd you get her?""Oh, she floated in. I give her a reading and found out she worked in a pickle factory down on Sixth Street where there are fifty or more girls. Soon as I found out the handle to work her by, I made her a proposition to tip off what's doing in her shop. She makes her little report, steers the girls up here, and then she comes round and tells me who they are and all about 'em.""That's what I call a good wholesale business," said Vixley enviously. "I wish I could work it as slick as that. She uses the peek-hole in the screen, I suppose?""Sometimes, and sometimes she sits behind the window curtain up-stairs.""You have to give yourself away, that's the only trouble," said Doctor Masterson."Oh, no," Madam Spoll remarked easily, "I just tell her that I can't always get everybody's magnetism, though of course I can always get hers. That gives her an idea she's important, don't you see? Then I can always lay anything suspicious to the Diakkas. Evil spirits are a great comfort.""And anyways, if she should want to tell anything," Vixley suggested, "you can everlastingly blacklist her at the factory with what you know.""Yes," Madam Spoll assented; "she's got a record herself, only she hasn't got sense enough to realize on it the way I do on mine. Is they any bigger fool than a girl that's in love?""Only a man that is," Vixley offered sagely."Oh,men!" she exclaimed contemptuously. "I believe they ain't more'n but three real ones alive to-day!"The Professor's eyes snapped. "Well, they's women enough, thank the Lord!""Well," said Doctor Masterson, "I got to go to work; I'm keeping office hours in the evening now and I have to hump. So long, Gertie, I'll be all ready for Payson, but you and Vixley have got to keep jollying him along. You want me to hold him about a month? I'll see what I can do, and if I get a lead, I'll let you know." He shook hands and left them."I ain't so sure of the Doc as I'd like to be," said Madam Spoll after he had gone."Nor me neither," Vixley replied. "We've got to watch him, I expect, but he'll do for a starter and we can fix him if he gets funny. There ain't nothin' like coöperation, Gertie."As Madam Spoll sat down again to open a bottle of beer she had taken from beneath the wash-stand, Professor Vixley began to twirl his fingers in his lap and snicker to himself."What are you laughing at, Vixley?" she asked, pouring out two frothing glasses."I was just a-thinkin' about Pierpont Thayer. Don't you remember that dope who went nuts on spiritualism and committed suicide?""No, I don't just recall it; what about it?""Why, he got all wound up in the circles here—Sadie Crum, she had him on the string for a year, till he didn't know where he was at. He took it so hard that one day he up and shot hisself and left a note pinned on to his bed that said: 'I go to test the problem.' Lord! I'd 'a' sold every one of my tricks and all hers to him for a five-dollar bill! Why didn't he come tometo test his problem? He'd 'a' found out quick enough.""Yes, and after you'd told him all about how it was done, I'll guarantee that I could have converted him again in twenty minutes.""I guess that's right," said Vixley. "Them that want to believe are goin' to, and you can't prevent 'em, no matter what you do. They're like hop fiends—they've got to have their dope whether or no, and just so long as they can dream it out they're happy."CHAPTER VIIIILLUMINATIONIt is easy to imagine the virtuous pride with which the civil engineer, Jasper O'Farrell, set about the laying out of the town of San Francisco in 1846. Here was the ideal site for a city—a peninsula lying like a great thumb on the hand of the mainland, between the Pacific Ocean and a deep, land-locked bay, an area romantically configured of hills and valleys, with picturesque mountain and water views, the setting sun in the west and Mount Diablo a sentinel in the east; to the northward, the sea channel of the Golden Gate overhung by the foot-hills of Tamalpais.There was still chance to amend and improve the old town site of Yerba Buena, the little Spanish settlement by the cove in the harbor, whose straight, narrow streets had been artlessly ruled by Francisco de Haro, alcalde of the Mission Dolores. He had marked out upon the ground, northerly, La Calle de la Fundacion and the adjacent squares necessary for the little port of entry in 1835. Four years later, when Governor Alvarado directed a new survey of the place, Jean Vioget extended the original lines with mathematical precision to the hills surrounding the valley; and it would have been possible to correct that artistic blunder of the simple-minded alcalde. But Jasper O'Farrell had seen military service with General Sutter; his ways were stern and severe, his esthetic impulses, if he had any, were heroically subdued. Market Street, indeed, he permitted to run obliquely, though it went straight as a bullet towards the Twin Peaks. The rest of the city he made one great checkerboard, in defiance of its natural topography.As one might constrict the wayward fancies of a gipsy maiden to the cold, tight-laced ethics of a puritanical creed, so O'Farrell bound the city that was to be for ever to a gridiron of right-angled streets and blocks of parallelograms. He knew no compromise. His streets took their straight and narrow way, up hill and down dale, without regard to grade or expense. Unswerving was their rectitude. Their angles were exactly ninety degrees of his compass, north and south, east and west. Where might have been entrancingly beautiful terraces, rising avenue above avenue to the heights, preserving the master-view of the continent, now the streets, committed to his plan, are hacked out of the earth and rock, precipitous, inaccessible, grotesque. So sprawls the fey, leaden-colored town over its dozen hills, its roads mounting to the sky or diving to the sea.So the stranger beholds San Francisco, the Improbable. Its pageantry is unrolled for all to see at first glance. Never was a city so prodigal of its friendship and its wealth. She salutes one on every crossing, welcoming the visitor openly and frankly with her western heart. In every little valley where the slack, rattling cables of her car-lines slap and splutter over the pulleys, some great area of the town exhibits a rising colony of blocks stretching up and over a shoulder of the hill to one side and to the other. Atop every crest one is confronted with farther districts lying not only beneath but opposite, across lower levels and hollows, flanking one's point of vantage with rival summits. San Francisco is agile in displaying her charms. As you are whirled up and down on the cable-car, she moves stealthily about you, now lagging behind in steep declivities, now dodging to right or left in stretches of plain or uplifted hillsides, now hurrying ahead to surprise you with a terrifying ascent crowned with palaces. Now she is all water-front and sailors' lodging-houses; in a trice she turns Chinatown, then shocks you with a Spanish, Italian or negro quarter. Past the next rise, you find her whimsical, fantastic with garish flats and apartment houses. She lurks in and about thousands of little wooden houses, and beyond, she drops a little park into your path, discloses a stretch of shimmering bay or unveils magnificently the green, gently-sloping expanse of the Presidio.No other city has so many points of view, none allures the stranger so with coquetry of originality and fantasy. Some cities have single dominant hills; but she is all hills, they are a vital part of herself. They march down into the town and one can not escape them, they stride north and west and must be climbed. The important lines of traffic accept these conditions and plunge boldly up and down upon their ways. And so, going or returning from his home, the city is always with the citizen—from Nob Hill he sees ships in the harbor and the lights of the Mission; from Kearney Street he keeps his view of Telegraph Hill and Twin Peaks—the San Franciscan is always in San Francisco, the city of extremes.Of all this topographical chaos, the most spectacular spot is Telegraph Hill. To the eastward on the harbor side, it rises a sheer precipice over a hundred feet high, where a concrete company has quarried stone for three decades despite protest, appeal, injunction and the force of arms. To the north and west the hill falls away into a jumble of streets, cliffed and hollowed like the billows of the sea, crusted with queer little houses of the Latin quarter.Francis Granthope, after the Chinese supper, had found himself swayed by an obsession. The thought of Clytie Payson was insistent in his mind. She troubled him. He recognized the symptom with a grim sense of its ridiculousness. It was, according to his theory, the first sign of love; but the idea of his being in love was absurd. Certainly he desired her, and that ardently. She stimulated him, she stirred his fancy. But he was jealous of his freedom; he would not be snared by a woman's eyes. Marriage, indeed, he had contemplated, but, to his mind, marriage was but a part of the game, a condition which would insure for him an attractive companion, a desirable standing; in short, a point of vantage. What had begun to chafe him, now, was a sort of compulsion that Clytie had put upon him. Somehow he could not be himself with her—he was self-conscious, timid—he was sensitive to her vibrations, he was swayed by her fine moods and impulses. Though the strain was gentle, still she coerced him. He felt an impulse to shake himself free.In this temper, he decided, while he was at dinner, to see her, and, if he could, regain possession of the situation, master her by the use of those arts by which he had so often won before. He would, at least, if he could not cajole her, assert his independence. No doubt he had been misled by her claims of intuitive power. He would put that to the test, as well.It was already after sunset when he started across Union Square. Kearney Street was alight with electric lamps and humming with life. He walked north, passing the gayer retail shopping district towards the cheaper stores, pawnshops and quack doctors' offices to where the old Plaza, rising in a green slope to Chinatown, displayed the little Stevenson fountain with its merry gilded ship. Here the waifs and the strays of the night were already wandering, and he responded to frequent appeals for charity.Beyond was the dance-hall district, where women of the town were promenading, seeking their prey; sailors and soldiers descended into subterranean halls of light and music. Then came the Italian quarter with its restaurants and saloons.He paused where Montgomery Avenue diverged, leading to the North Beach, consulted his watch, and found that it was too early to call. He decided to kill time by going up Telegraph Hill, and kept on up Kearney Street.Across Broadway, it mounted suddenly in an incline so steep, that ladder-like frameworks flat upon the ribbed concrete sidewalks were necessary for ascent. Two blocks the hill rose thus, encompassed by disconsolate and wretched little houses, with alleys plunging down from the street into the purlieus of the quarter; then it ran nearly level to the foot of the hill. The track there was up steps and across hazardous platforms, clambering up and up to a steep path gullied by the winter rains, and at last, by a stiff climb, to the summit of the hill.From here one could see almost the whole peninsula, the town falling away in waves of hill and valley to the west. The bay lay beneath him, the docks flat and square, as if drawn on a map, red-funneled steamers lying alongside. In the fairway, vessels rode at anchor, lighted by the moon. The top of the hill was commanded by a huge, castellated, barn-like white structure which had once been used as a pleasure pavilion, but was now deserted, save by a rascally herd of tramps. At a near view its ruined, deserted grandeur showed unkempt and dingy. By its side, a city park, crowning the crest, scantily cultured and improved, indicated the first rude beginning of formal arrangement. Moldering, displaced concrete walls and seats showed what had been done and neglected.He skirted the eastern slope of the hill, went up and down one-sided streets, streets that dipped and slid longitudinally, streets tilted transversely, keeping along a path at the top till he came to the cliff.Here was the prime scandal of the town, naked in all its horror. The quarrymen had, with their blasting, robbed the hill inch by inch, foot by foot and acre by acre. Already a whole city block had disappeared, caving gradually away to tumble to the talus of gravel at the foot of the steep slope. For years, the neighborhood had been terrorized by this irresistible, ever-approaching fate. The edge of the precipice drew nearer and nearer the houses, bit off a corner of the garden here, ate away a piece of fence there, till the danger-line approached the habitations themselves. Nor did it stop there; it crept below the floors, it sapped the foundations till the house had to be abandoned. Then with a crash, some afternoon, the whole structure would fall into the hollow. House after house had disappeared, family after family had been ruined. The crime was rank and outrageous, but it had not been stopped.As Granthope walked, he saw bits of such deserted residences. Here a flight of stone steps on the verge of the height, there fences running giddily off into the air or drain-pipes, broken, sticking over the edge. The hazardous margin was now fenced off—at any moment a huge mass might slip away and slide thundering below. At the foot of the cliff stood the lead-colored building housing the stone-crusher, whose insatiate appetite had caused this sacrifice of property. It was ready to feed again on the morrow.He walked to the edge and looked down a sharp incline, a few rods away from the most dangerous part of the cliff. He was outside the fence, now, with nothing between him and the slope. As he stood there, a dog barked suddenly behind him. He turned—his foot slipped upon a stone, twisted under him, and he fell outward. He clutched at the loose dirt, but could not save himself and rolled over and over down the slope. Forty feet down his head struck a boulder and he lost consciousness.He came to himself with a blinding, splitting pain in his head; his body was stiff and cold in the night air. He lay half-way down the slope, his hands and face were scratched and bleeding, his clothes were torn. He was motionless for some time, endeavoring to collect his senses, wondering vaguely what to do. Then he stirred feebly, tried his limbs to see what damage had been done and found he had broken no bones. His ankle, however, was badly strained, and it ached severely. As he sank back again, far down the hill towards the crusher building, a voice came up to him:"Francis! Francis!"It penetrated his consciousness slowly. Still a little dazed, he rolled over and looked down to the deserted street below. He tried to rise and his ankle crumpled under him. He answered as loud as he could cry, then lay there watching.Sansome Street lay bare in the moonlight. On the near side the hill sloped up to him from the rock crusher. On the other side was a row of gaunt buildings—a pickle factory, a fruit-canning works, and so on, to the dock. An electric car flashed by and, as it passed, he saw a woman moving to and fro at the foot of the talus.He sat up as well as he could on the slope and again shouted down to her. She stopped instantly. Then, waving her hand, she started to scramble up the slippery gravel of the hill.As she ascended, she had to zigzag this way and that to avoid sliding back. Part of the time, she was forced to go almost on hands and knees. The moon was behind her, throwing her face into shadow. She climbed steadily without calling to him again. When she was a few yards away, he cried to her:"Miss Payson! Is that you?""Yes! Don't try to move, I'm coming."She reached him at last and knelt before him anxiously. Her tawny, silken hair was loosened under her hat and streamed down into her eyes. She had on a red cloth opera cloak with an ermine collar; this was partly open, showing, underneath, a white silk evening dress cut low in the neck. Her hands were covered with white suede gloves to the elbow—they were grimy and torn into ribbons. Her white skirt, too, was ripped and soiled. She put her hand to her hair and tossed it back, then took his hands in hers."Are you hurt?" she asked anxiously."Not much. I believe I was stunned. I have no idea how long I've been here. What time is it?""It is almost eleven. Oh, I'm so glad I found you! I'm going to help you down." She stooped lower to assist him."But I don't understand," he said in astonishment. "How in the world did you happen to come? What does it all mean?" His bewilderment was comic enough to draw forth her flashing smile."We'll talk about that afterwards. We must get down this hill first. Oh, I hope there are no bones broken.""Oh, no, I'm all right," he insisted, "but it's like a dream! Let me think—I was up on Telegraph Hill, and I slipped and fell over—then I must have been unconscious until you came.—How did you happen to come? I don't understand. It's so mysterious.""You must get up now. See if you can walk." She gently urged him. "I'll explain it all when you're safe down there where we can get help."With her assistance he raised himself slowly, but the pain in his ankle was too great for him to support his own weight. He dropped limply down again and smiled up at her."I think I might make it if I had a crutch of some kind—any stick would do.""Wait, I'll see if I can find one."She left him, to go down, slipping dangerously at times, using her hands to save herself. Part-way down she found an old broom—the straw was worn to a mere stub, and this she brought back.With its aid and that of her steady arm, he hobbled down foot by foot. He slid and fell with a suppressed groan more than once, but she was always ready to lift him and support his weight in the steeper descents. The lower part of the hill fanned out to a more gradual slope, where it was easier going. They reached the sidewalk at last and he sat down upon a large rock almost exhausted.Just then an electric car came humming down Sansome Street. In an instant she was out on the track signaling for it to stop."If you pass a cab or a policeman, please send them down here!" she commanded. "This gentleman has met with an accident and we must have help to take him home."The conductor nodded, staring at her, as she stood in her disheveled finery, splendidly bold in the moonlight, like a dismounted Valkyr. The car plowed on and left them. Calmly she stripped off her slashed gloves and repaired the disorder of her hair. A long double necklace of pearls caught the moonlight, and in the front breadth of her gown, a rent showed a pale blue silken skirt beneath. Granthope, bedraggled and smeared with blood and dust, was as grotesque a figure. The humor of the picture struck them at once, and they burst into laughter.Then, "How did you know?" he said.She became serious immediately. "It was very strange. I was at a reception with Mr. Cayley. I happened to be sitting on a couch by myself, when—I don't know how to describe the sensation—but I saw you, or felt you, lying somewhere, on your back. I was so frightened I didn't know what to do. I knew something had happened, yet I didn't know where to find you. I gave it up and tried to forget about it, but I couldn't—it was like a steady pain—then I knew I had to come. It seemed so foolish and vague that I didn't want to ask Mr. Cayley to go on such a wild-goose chase with me. Father understands me better and if he'd been there I would have brought him along. So I slipped out alone, put on my things and took a car down-town. I seemed to know by instinct where to get off—you should have seen the way the conductors stared at me!—and I turned right down this way, trusting to my intuitions. I seemed to be led directly to the foot of the cliff here where I first called you.""Yes, you called 'Francis,' didn't you?" he said, looking up at her in wonder."Did I? I don't know what I said—if I did it was as instinctively done as all the rest. We'll have to go into business together." Her laugh was nervous and excited.He frowned. "Miss Payson, I don't know how to thank you—it was a splendid thing to do.""Oh, it has been a real adventure—almost my first. But it's not over yet. I must take you home now. What a sight I am! You, too! Wait—let me clean you off a little."She stooped over him and, with a lace handkerchief, lightly brushed his face free of the dust, wiped the blood away, then, with gentle fingers, smoothed his black hair. Both trembled slightly at the contact. She stopped, embarrassed at her own boldness, then stood more constrained and self-conscious, till the rattling wheels of a carriage were heard. A hack came clattering up over the cobble-stones and drew up at the curb. The driver jumped down from his seat.There were a few words of explanation and direction, then the man and Clytie, one on either side, helped Granthope into the vehicle. She followed and the cab drove off up-town. For a few moments the two sat in silence, side by side. An electric lamp illuminated her face for an instant as the carriage whirled past a corner. Her eyes were shining, her lips half open, as she looked at him.The sight of her, and the excitement of her romantic intervention, made him forget his pain. He felt her spell again, and now with this appearance how much more strongly! There was no denying her magic after such a bewildering manifestation. The event had, also, brought her humanly more near to him—he had felt the strong touch of her hand, her breath on his face—the very disorder of her attire seemed to increase their intimacy. He leaned back to enjoy the full flavor of her charm. He was suddenly aroused by her placid, even voice:"Mr. Granthope, there's one thing you didn't tell me the other day, when you described that scene at Madam Grant's."He caught the name with surprise, remembering that he had never spoken it to her. In her mention of it he felt a vague alarm."What?" He heard his voice betray him."That there was a little boy with her, that day." Clytie turned to him, and for the first time he felt a sudden fear that she would find him out."Was there a little boy there? How do you know?"She kept looking at him, and away, as she spoke. In the drifting of her glances, however, her eyes seemed to seek his continuously, rather than continually to escape. "Quite by accident—never mind now. But this is what is most strange of all—I didn't tell you, before—while I was there, that time, so many years ago—you know what strange fancies children have—you know how, if one is at all sensitive to psychic influence, how much stronger and how natural it seems when one is young—well, all the while, I seemed to feel there was some one else there—some one I couldn't see!"She was too much for him, with such intuition. His one hope was, now, that she would not plumb the whole depth of his deceit. He managed his expression, drawing back into the shadow."Did you know who it was, there?""No—only that I was drawn secretly to some one who was there, near me, out of sight. Of course, I've forgotten much of the impression, but now, as I remember it, it almost seems to me as if this little boy—whoever he was—must be related to me in some vague way—as if we had something in common. I wish I could find out about it. You know better the rationale of these things—they come to me only in flashes of intuition, suddenly, when I least expect them."He sought desperately to divert her from the subject, summoning to his aid the tricks experience had taught him. First to his hand came the ruse of personality."You called me 'Francis' before—that was strange, for few people call me that or Frank nowadays—only one or two who have known me a long time.""Ah, I didn't know what I was saying. It was strange, wasn't it? But you won't accuse me of coquetry at such a time, will you? You were in danger—I thought only of that.""Oh, I don't mind," he said playfully."Nor do I.""You'll call me Francis?"She smiled. "Every time I rescue you."There was evidently no lead for him there. He had to laugh, and give it up. Clytie's mood grew more serious."Mr. Cayley was telling me how interesting you were after the ladies had left; really, he was quite complimentary. He told me all about that absurd Bennett affair you talked about.""Yes, it was an extraordinary case." He wondered what was coming."I mean the story was absurd to hear, but I can't help wondering what sort of people they were who would deceive an old man like that. It seems pitiful to me that any one could have the heart to do it—and for money, too."Granthope cursed his indiscretion. Must she find this out, too? Was no part of his life, past or present, safe from her? If so, he might as well give her up now. It seemed impossible to conceal anything from her clear vision. But he still strove to put her off."Oh, these people were weak and ignorant—we haven't all the same advantages or the same sensitiveness to honor and truth. They were used to this sort of thing, hardened to it, and perhaps unconscious of their baseness by a constant association with such deceptions.""But didn't Mr. Bennett have any friends to warn him—to show these people up in their true light?""Oh, that was no use. It was tried, yes; that is, he was shown his carriage, for instance, after it was sold, but he refused to believe it was the same one. He confessed that it was just like it, but he knew that his was then on the planet Jupiter. I don't think the mediums themselves could have convinced him.""Think of it! It makes their swindling even worse. If he had doubted, if he had tried to trap them, it wouldn't be quite so bad, it would have been a battle of brains—but to impose on such credulity, to make a living by it—oh, it's unthinkable!""Well, after all, they made him happy. In a way, they were telling him only pleasant lies, as a parent might tell a child about Santa Claus and the fairies."He could not keep it up much longer. It was too perilous; and he played for her sympathy. "After all, I suppose my business is about as undignified.""But it's really a science, isn't it? Mr. Cayley gave me to understand that you had a convincing theory to explain all personal physical characteristics.""There's a little more to palmistry than that, I think—an instinctive feeling for character.""Of course. You must have felt my personality intuitively, or you would never have been able to get it so well. But it was most extraordinary of all, I think, the way you got my name. How do you account for that?"He felt the net closing about him."Oh, I'm sometimes clairaudient."She took it up with animation. "Are you? I must try to send you a message!""Haven't you?" he said, still attempting to keep the talk less serious. "All day I have heard you saying, 'You must learn.' But learn what?""It seems so queer to me that you shouldn't know, yourself.""Then tell me. Explain.""No, you'll find out, I think."He waited a while, for a twinge of pain gave him all he could do to control himself. Somehow it sobered him. "I wish I dared to be friends with you."She gave him her hand simply and he returned its cordial pressure. He was sincere enough, now. He was not afraid of mere generalities."I'm not worthy of your friendship," he said. "I'd hate to have you know how little I am worth it. If you knew how I have lived—what few chances I have had to know any one really worth while. I've never yet had a friend who was able to understand me.""I have given you my hand," she replied, "and I shall not withdraw it. It is my intuition, you see, and not my reason, that makes me trust you."They relapsed for a while into silence. Then, as the cab turned up into Geary Street, past the electric lights, she went on as if she had been thinking it out to herself."You know what I said the other day about its being easier to say real things at the first meeting. I am afraid I said too much then. But I was impatient. I felt that I might never see you again and I wanted to give you the message. Now, when I feel sure that we're going to be friends, I am quite willing to wait and let it all come about naturally. The only thing I demand is honesty.""Is that all?" he asked, with a touch of sarcasm.She laughed unaffectedly. "Are you finding it so hard?"The cab drew up to the curb at the door of his rooms. Immediately she became solicitous, helping him to alight. He used the broom for a crutch, and, scratched and torn, his clothes still stained with clay, she in her harlequin of dirt and rags, they presented an extraordinary spectacle under the electric light, to a man on the sidewalk who was approaching leisurely, swinging his stick. As they reached the entrance he drew nearer, making as if to speak to them; instead, he lifted his hat, stared at them and passed on. It was Blanchard Cayley.Clytie's face went red. Cayley turned for an instant to look at them again and then proceeded on his way. Granthope did not notice him.Clytie disregarded his protest, and, saying that she would see him safely to his room, at least, accompanied him up-stairs.As he fumbled for his key in his pocket, the office door was suddenly opened and Fancy Gray appeared upon the threshold.Her eyebrows went up and Granthope's went down. Her eyes had flown past him to stare at Clytie. The two women confronted each other for a tense moment without a word.Fancy had taken off her jacket; her hair was braided down her back. She wore an embroidered linen blouse turned away at the neck, and pinned over her heart was a little silver chatelaine watch with a blue dial. It rose and fell as she drew breath suddenly."Mr. Granthope has met with an accident," Clytie announced, the first to recover from the shock of surprise."I should say he had," was her comment, "and you, too?" Then she laughed nervously. "It must have been a draw."Clytie did not catch the allusion. "I happened to find him and brought him back," she explained. "He had fallen down the cliff on Telegraph Hill."As Granthope limped in, Fancy put a few more wondering inquiries, which he answered in monosyllables. Seeing Fancy so disconcerted, Clytie left Granthope in a chair and turned directly to her with a conciliatory gesture."We always seem to meet in queer circumstances, Miss Gray, don't we?" she said kindly. "It's really most fortunate that you happened to be here at work. I don't quite know what I should have done, all alone, but I'm sure you will do all that's necessary for Mr. Granthope, better than I. I must hurry home; father will be expecting me."During this speech, Fancy's eyes had filled, and now they shone soft with gratitude."Oh," she said, "I can fix him up all right. It's only a bad strain, I guess."Granthope watched the two women in silence."Well, then, I'll go." Clytie walked to the mirror, smiled with Fancy at the image she saw there, touched her hat and rubbed her face with her handkerchief. Then she held out her hand with a charming simplicity."I do wish you'd come and see me sometime, Miss Gray!" she said.Fancy choked down something in her throat before she replied."I will—sometime—sure. If youreallywant to see me.""Yes, I really do." Clytie smiled again. Then she went up to Granthope. "Good night, Mr. Granthope, I'm sure I'm leaving you in kind hands. I hope it won't prove a serious injury. And—remember!" Then, bowing to both, she left the room and went down to her cab.Two vertical lines were furrowed in Granthope's brow. He turned to Fancy with a look that barely escaped being angry."God! I'm sorry you were here!""Yes? That's easily remedied; you only have to say the word.""Too late, now!" His tone was sad rather than cruel."I hardly expected you to bring home company—" she began."I'm sure it was as much a surprise to me—""I'm sorry, Frank, but I had to see you—Vixley was here after you left."He groaned with the pain his ankle gave him and she flew to him and knelt before his chair."Oh, Frank, I'm so sorry. What can I do for you? First, let me take off your shoe and attend to your foot. I can run out and get something to put on it. It was awkward, my being here—but I don't mind on my own account, so much. If it embarrassed you, forgive me.""It's worse than that," he said."You mean—that youcarefor her?""I don't know what I do mean—but you'll have to go."She looked up at him for a moment, searching his drawn face."I will, just as soon as I've bound up your ankle and got your couch ready. It won't take long.""No, I can attend to that myself. I'll telephone for a doctor and have him fix me up. You must go now.""All right. Just wait till I put on my jacket and do up my hair."Walking off, proudly, she opened the door of the closet and stood before the mirror there, while he, a limp, relaxed figure in the arm-chair, watched her as she unbraided her hair and combed it out in a magnificent coppery cascade to her waist. Tossing her head, she said:"Vixley's laying for you, Frank! You'd better watch out for him. It's something shady about the old man's past, I believe. Anyway, I hope you'll fool 'em, Frank!"With this complication of his position, he bent his head on his hand as if he were weary. "I don't know what I'm going to do," he said. "It's too much for me, I'm afraid.""What's the matter?" said Fancy solicitously. "Didn't I work it right? Honest, Frank, I didn't give you away a bit—I didn't tell him a word. You know my work isn't lumpy—I just pumped him. I beat him at his own game, and it didn't taste so good, either. Oh, I'm so sorry if I did anything to hurt you. I'd die first!"As he did not answer her she came over to him and knelt on the floor, seizing his hand. Her tears fell upon it."You've been mighty good to me, Frank, you sure have! You took me off the streets when I was starving. I don't know whatever would have become of me. I suppose I'd gone right down the line, if it hadn't been for you. You're the only friend I've got, and I only wish I could do something to prove how grateful I am. Honest, I thought I was helping you out when I kept Vixley here. You don't think—you don't think Ilikehim—do you? Don't saythat, Frank!"She was speaking in gasps now; her tears were unrestrained. Her hand clutched his so fiercely that he could scarcely bear the pain. He did not dare to look at her."I've always been square with you, Frank, haven't I?"He patted her hand softly."We've kept to the compact, haven't we? The compact we made at Alma? You trust me, don't you?""Of course! You're all right—you're true blue. I couldn't distrust you. You'll always be the Maid of Alma. It was a game thing you did for me. Nobody else would have done it. You have helped me, but I can't tell you what a corner I'm in." He paused and looked at her intensely. "Fancy—you haven't forgotten—have you?"She forced a trembling smile, as she said bravely:"'No fair falling in love'?""Yes."She shook out a laugh and stroked his hand, looking up at him through her tears. "Oh, no danger of that, Frank. You don't know me. I'm all right, sure! Only—and I owe you so much! You've taught me everything. If I could only do something to prove that I'm worth it.""You can—that's the trouble. I believe I'm almost cur enough to ask it of you.""What is it? Tell me, quick! You know I'd black your boots for you. I'd do anything.""Did you notice Miss Payson's face when she saw you?""Yes." Fancy dropped her head."I'd hate to have her suspect—if she thought—""Oh!" She sprang to her feet and stood as proud as a lioness. "Is that it? You want me to go for good?" Even now there was no anger in her look or tone. The little silver watch heaved up and down on her breast.He sought for a kind phrase. "I'm afraid it would be better—it makes me feel like a beast—of course, you understand—" his eyes went to her, pleading."Then itisMiss Payson? Oh, Frank, why didn't you tell me! You might have trusted me! You ought to have known better! Haven't I always said that when the woman who could make you happy did come, how glad I'd be for you?""You're really not hurt, then? I was afraid—""Poor old Frank! You goose! Of course not—it makes me sorry to think of leaving you, that's all. Never mind—there's nothing in the race but the finish! I'm all right." She had become a little hysterical in her actions, but he was too distracted to notice it."I'll let you have all the money you want—I'll get you a good place——" he began.She shook her head decidedly. "Cut that out, please, Frank; but thanks, all the same. If I ever want any money, I'll come to you. Why shouldn't I? But not now. Don't pay me to go away—that sounds rotten. I'll get a position all right. Didn't I turn down that secretary's place only last week? But I guess I'll travel on my looks for a while. I'm flush.""I hope I can tell her all about this, sometime," he said wearily."Bosh! What's the use? Thank God some women know that some women are square without being told. Men seem to think we're all cats. Even women talk of each other as if they were a different sort of human animal. But not Miss Payson—she's a thoroughbred. I can seethatall right. You can't fool Fancy Gray about petticoats. I take off my hat to her. She's got every womanyouever had running after you beaten a mile. Don't you worry—she'll never be surprised to find that a woman can be square. Well, I'll fade away then."As she talked she buttoned up her jacket and stuck the hat pin in her hair. Now her eyes grew dreamier and she went over and sat on the arm of his chair and put her hand on his hair affectionately, saying:"Say, Frank, I don't know—after all, perhaps sometime you might just tell her this—sometime when the thing's all going straight, when she's got over—well, what I saw in her eyes to-night—when she finds out what you're worth—when she really knows how good you are—you just tell her this—say: 'There's one thing about Fancy Gray, she always played fair!' She'll know then; but just now, you can be careful of her—watch out what you do with her, she's going to suffer a whole lot if you don't. You know something about women, but you'll find out that when you're sure enough in love you'll need it all, and what you know isn't a drop in the bucket to what you've got to learn. I hope you'll get it good and hard. It'll do you good. You only know one side now. You'll learn the rest from her. She's not the sort to do things half-way. When she begins to go she'll go the limit."She leaned over him. "You might give me one kiss just to brace me up, will you? It may take the taste of Vixley off my lips. Well, so long. Don't take any Mexican money! If there's anything I can do, let me know." She rose and tossed a smile at him with her old jaunty grace. Then she patted him on the cheek and went swiftly out.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Payson, I'm little Eva! I brought you some flowers, but you can't see 'em, 'cause they're spirit flowers. You don't look very well. Ain't you feelin' well to-day? I'm always well here, and it's lovely on this side."
He made no response. Madam Spoll's soft hand, obviously controlled by her spirit guide, moved up Mr. Payson's arm and patted his cheek. He drew back suddenly.
"My!" little Eva exclaimed. "You frightened me! What a funny man you are! Won't you just let me smoove your hair, once? I'd love to. Oh, I think you're horrid! I'm just doin' to slap your face—there!" Which she did quite briskly.
Mr. Payson loosened his hold with some annoyance.
"Well, I ain't doin' to stay if you don't love me," the shrill voice went on. "I don'tlikemen who don't love me. Good-by, old man, I'm doin'."
There was another wriggle on the part of the medium, after which a lower-toned voice said:
"How do you do! I'm Luella."
He watched the medium's blank, expressionless face as she spoke.
"Say, you ain't well, I can see that. Haven't you got a pain in your leg? Excuse me saying it, but I can feel it right there."
She touched him gently on the thigh.
"Oh, that's only a touch of rheumatism," he replied.
"No, it ain't," she said, "it's more serious than that. It's chronic, and it's growing worse. Sometimes it's so painful that you almost die of it, isn't it? I know where you got it; it come of an accident. I can see you in a big crowded house, like, and there's railroad trains coming and going, and you're crowded and jammed. You got internal injuries and a complication. You didn't realize it at the time, but it's growing worse every day. If you don't look out you'll pass out through it, but if you went right to work, you could be cured of it, before it gets too bad."
"What could I do about it?" he asked. "The doctors don't help me much."
"Of course they don't. You haven't been to the right ones. I was an Indian doctor, and I can see just what's the matter with you. You need a certain kind of herb I used to use when I was on the flesh-plane in Idaho."
"Can't you help me, then?"
"Oh, I've got to go now, they're calling to me. So good-by." Another wriggle and Madam Spoll was herself again.
"Well, what did you get?" she asked when she recovered.
"Why, don't you know?"
"No more'n a babe unborn," she said. "I was in a dead trance, and I never remember anything that happens. I hope little Eva didn't tease you any."
"Who is the other one—Luella?"
"Why, she's an Indian princess that passed out about ten years back. She's got a great gift of diagnosing cases. She's helped my sitters a good deal."
"She told me something about my trouble."
"You mean about the gray-haired lady or the child?"
"Oh, no, about my leg!"
"Did she, now? Well, what did I tell you! Seems to me youdolook peaked and pale, like you was enjoying poor health. I noticed it when you first come in. I don't believe your blood's good. Luella don't prescribe ordinarily, but she can diagnose cases something wonderful. If I should tell you how many doctors in this town send their patients to me to be diagnosed before they dare to treat them themselves, you'd be surprised. Why, only the other day a lady come in here that was give up by four doctors for cancer, and Luella found it was only a boil in her kidney. She went to a magnetic healer and was cured in a week. Now she's doing her own work and taking care of her babies, keeping boarders and plans to go camping this very month."
"Who was the doctor?" Mr. Payson asked, much impressed.
"Doctor Masterson. He's up on Market Street somewhere. Perhaps I've got a card of his around. I'll see if I can find it."
She walked over to the mantel and fussed among its dusty ornaments, saying, with apparent concern, as she rummaged:
"I don't know as I ought to send you to Doctor Masterson, after all. You see, he ain't a man I like very much, and few do, I find. He don't stand very well with the Spiritual Society, nor with anybody else that I know of. He ain't quite on the square, do you understand what I mean? To be perfectly frank, I think he's a rascal. He has a bad reputation as a man, but all the same, he's a good medium, nobody deniesthat, and he does accomplish some marvelous cures! If Luella said your complaint was serious, she knows, and it looks to me like you must go to Doctor Masterson or die of it, for if he can't cure you, nobody can. He's certainly a marvelous healer."
She found the card at last, and brought it over to Mr. Payson.
"Here it is, but you better not tell him I give it to you, for we ain't on very good terms, and I wouldn't want him to know that I was sending him business."
As Mr. Payson rose to go, the medium stopped him with a gesture.
"Wait a minute," she said, passing her hand across her forehead. "Grace is here again and she says: Tell him that we're doing all we can on the spirit plane to help him and we want him to cheer up, for conditions are going to be more favorable in a little while, say, by the end of September.'"
She paused a moment and then added:
"Who's Clytie? Would that be the gray-haired lady?"
"What about Clytie?" He was instantly aroused.
"It don't seem to me like she's in the spirit, exactly. She's on the material plane. Let's see if I can get it more definite. Oh, Grace says she's your daughter."
"That's true."
"What do you think of that? I get it very plain now. Grace says she's watching over Clytie and will help her all she can."
"Can't she tell me anything more?"
The medium became normal. "No, I guess that's about all I can do for you to-day. I think you got some good tests, specially when you consider it was the first time. When you come again I expect we can do better, and I'm sure we can find that little boy you was interested in."
Mr. Payson rose and stood before her, sedate, dignified, and said, in his impressive platform-manner:
"I don't mind saying that I consider this very remarkable, Madam Spoll, very remarkable. I shall certainly call again sometime next week. I am much interested. Now, what is the charge, please?"
"Oh, we'll only call this three dollars. My price is generally five, but I'm sort of interested in your case and I want you to be perfectly satisfied. You can just ring me up any time and make an appointment with me."
She bowed him out with a calm, pleasant smile.
Down-stairs, Professor Vixley was awaiting her. With him was a shrewd-eyed, bald-headed, old man, with iron spectacles, his forehead wrinkled in horizontal lines, as if it had been scratched with a sharp comb. He had a three days' growth of red beard on his chin and cheeks, and his teeth, showing in a rift between narrow, bloodless lips, were almost black. He wore a greasy, plaid waistcoat, a celluloid collar much in need of the laundry and a ready-made butterfly bow.
"Why, how d'you do, Doctor Masterson?" said Madam Spoll. "I was hoping you would get around to-day, so's we could talk business. I suppose you put him wise about Payson, Vixley?"
"Certainly," said the Professor. "We're goin' to share and share alike, and work him together as long as it lasts. How did you get on with him to-day?"
"Oh, elegant," was the answer, as she took a seat on the couch and put up her feet. "I don't believe we're going to be able to use Flora, though."
Professor Vixley's black eyes glistened and he grinned sensuously. "Why, couldn't you get a rise out of him?"
Madam Spoll shook her huge head decidedly. "No, that sort of game won't work on him. He ain't that kind. I went as far as I dared and give him a good chance, but he wouldn't stand for it."
"That's all right, Gert," said Vixley, "I ain't sayin' but what you're a fine figure of a woman, but he's sixty and he might prefer somebody younger. You know how they go. Now, Flora, she's a peach. She'd catch any man, sure! She knows the ropes, too, and she can deliver the goods all right. Look at the way she worked Bennett. Why, he was dead stuck on her the first time he seen her. She put it all over Fancy at the first rattle out of the box."
Again Madam Spoll's crisp, iron-gray curls shook a denial. "See here, Vixley!" she exclaimed, "I ain't been in this business for eighteen years without getting to know something about men. Bennett was a very different breed of dog. I can see a hole in a ladder, and I know what I'm talking about. Payson ain't up to any sort of fly game. He's straight, and he's after something different, you take my word for that. If there was anything in playing him that way, I'd be the first one to steer him on to Flora Flint, but he'd smell a mice if she got gay with him and he'd be so leary that we couldn't do nothing more with him."
"Well, whatdidyou get, then?" Vixley asked.
"Did you wire it up for me?" Doctor Masterson added.
"Oh, I fixed you all right, Doc. He'll show up at your place, sure enough. That accident tip worked all right and I got him going pretty good about his leg. He's got your card and I give you a recommendation, I don't think! You want to look out about what you say about me. We ain't on speaking terms, you understand, and you're a fakir, for fair. You can get back at me all you want, only don't draw it hard enough to scare him away."
Doctor Masterson grinned, showing his line of black fangs, and stuck his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets placidly. "Oh, I'm used to being knocked, don't mind me. I'll charge him for it. If I'm going to be the villain of this here drama, I'll do it up brown."
"Let's see now. I s'pose you can probably hold him about two months, can't you?" said Vixley, stroking his pointed black beard and spitting into the fireplace.
"Oh, not so long as that," said Madam Spoll. "We want to get to work on that book proposition. A month's plenty long enough. They ain't much money in it."
"I don't know." Doctor Masterson shook his head. "I've strung 'em for six months many's the time."
"Women, perhaps, but not men," said the Madam.
"Well, maybe. Men are liable to be in more of a hurry, of course."
"And women ain't so much, with you, are they?"
The two men laughed cynically.
"Oh, they's more ways to work women than men, that's all," the doctor replied. "They're more interested in their symptoms, and they like to talk about 'em. Then, again, they's a more variety of complaints to choose from. I don't say I ain't had some pretty cases in my day."
"Say!" Madam Spoll interposed. "Who's having a circle to-night—Mayhew?"
"Let's see—it's Friday, ain't it? Yes, Mayhew and Sadie Crum," Vixley replied.
"Well, I s'pose we got to put 'em wise about Payson," said the Madam. "He's got the bug now and he's pretty sure to make the rounds."
"Can't we keep him dark?" said Vixley. "He's our game and they might possibly ring him in."
"No, that won't do," she answered emphatically. "We got to play fair. They've always been square with us, and they won't catch him, I'll see to that. Mayhew's straight enough and if Sadie tries to get gay with us, we can fix her and she knows it. And the more easy tests he gets, the better for us. It'll keep him going, and so long as they don't go too far, it'll help us. The sooner he gets so he don't want to impose test conditions, the better, and they can help convert him for us. I'll ring up Mayhew now. I've got a good hunch that Payson will show up there to-night."
She raised her bulk from the couch and went to the telephone by the window, calling for Mayhew's number. When she had got it, she said:
"Is this number thirty-one? ... Yes, I'm number fifteen.... Sure! Oh, pretty good! ... I got a tip for you. I'm playing a six-year-old for the handicap, named Oliver. Carries sixty pounds, colors blue and gray, ten hands, jockey is Payson. He's a ten-to-one shot. My wife Grace lived in Stockton. Do what you can for me, but keep your hands off, do you understand? Numbers forty and thirteen are with me in this deal and we'll fix it for you if you stand in ... yes, all right! If he shows up let me know to-morrow morning, sure."
She turned to the two men. "I guess that's all right now."
"What's all that about Stockton?" Vixley asked.
"He lived there once and there's something more about his wife or something. Mayhew may fish it out of him, and if he does I'll put you on."
"I ain't seen him yet," said the doctor, "but I guess I'll recognize him. Sixty years old, Oliver Payson, one hundred and sixty pounds, blue eyes and gray hair, six feet tall. Are you sure he's a ten-to-one, though? That cuts more ice than anything."
"Oh, sure!" said Madam Spoll. "Why, he swallowed the whole dose. He ain't doing no skeptic business. He thinks he's an investigator. Wait till you hear him talk and you'll understand. Not religious, you know, but a good old sort. He's caught all right, and if we jolly him along, we can polish him off good."
"They ought to be some good materializin' graft in that wife proposition. Grace, was it? We might turn him over to Flora for that." This from Vixley.
"I've been thinking of that," said Madam Spoll, "but I don't know whether he'll stand for it or not. It won't be anywheres near the snap it was with Bennett, in full daylight, and we'll have to have special players. I believe I can put my hands on one or two that can help us out, though. Miss French for one; she's got four good voices. Then there's a young girl I got my eye on that'll do anything I say. She's slim and she can work an eight-inch panel as slick as soap; and she's got a memory for names and faces that beats the directory. Besides, I believe she's really psychic. I've seen her do some wonderful things at mind-reading."
"No, can she really!" said Vixley.
"Oh, I used to be clairaudient myself when I begun," said Madam Spoll a little sadly. "I could catch a name right out of the air, half the time. I've gave some wonderful tests in my day, but you can't never depend upon it, and when you work all the week, sick or well, drunk or sober, you have to put water in the milk and then it's bound to go from you. You have to string 'em sooner or later. This girl's a dandy at it, though, but that'll all wait. There's enough to do before we get to that part of the game. I expect I had better go out and see Sadie Crum myself. I don't trust her telephone. She's got a ten-party line, what do you think of that?"
"A ten-party line don't do for business," said Vixley, "but it's pretty good for rubberin'. I've got some pretty good dope off my sister's wire. She spends pretty near all her time on it and it does come in handy."
"Oh, pshaw!" Madam Spoll looked disgusted. "I ain't got time to spend that way. What's the use anyway? They ain't but one rule necessary to know in this business, and that is: All men is conceited, and all women is vain."
"That's right!" Vixley assented. "Only I got another that works just as good; all women want to think they are misunderstood, and all men want to think they understand. Ain't that right, Doc?"
Masterson grinned. "I guess likely you ought to know, if anybody does. But I got a little one of my own framed up, too. How's this? All men want to be heroes and all women want to be martyrs."
The three laughed cynically together. They had learned their practical psychology in a thorough school. Madam Spoll chuckled for some time pleasantly.
"You're the one had ought to write a book, Masterson. I'll bet it would beat out Payson's!"
"Lord!" said Vixley. "If I was to write down the things that have happened to me, just as they occurred—"
"It wouldn't be fit to print," Madam Spoll added. Vixley looked flattered.
"How about that pickle-girl?" he asked next.
"What's that?" said Doctor Masterson.
"Oh, a new graft of Gertie's. Did she come, Gert?"
"I should say she did," Madam Spoll replied. "And I got her on the string staking out dopes, too. Why, she's mixed up with a fellow at the Risdon Iron Works, and she don't dare to say her soul's her own since she told me."
"Nothin' like a good scandal to hold on to people by," Masterson remarked. "Where'd you get her?"
"Oh, she floated in. I give her a reading and found out she worked in a pickle factory down on Sixth Street where there are fifty or more girls. Soon as I found out the handle to work her by, I made her a proposition to tip off what's doing in her shop. She makes her little report, steers the girls up here, and then she comes round and tells me who they are and all about 'em."
"That's what I call a good wholesale business," said Vixley enviously. "I wish I could work it as slick as that. She uses the peek-hole in the screen, I suppose?"
"Sometimes, and sometimes she sits behind the window curtain up-stairs."
"You have to give yourself away, that's the only trouble," said Doctor Masterson.
"Oh, no," Madam Spoll remarked easily, "I just tell her that I can't always get everybody's magnetism, though of course I can always get hers. That gives her an idea she's important, don't you see? Then I can always lay anything suspicious to the Diakkas. Evil spirits are a great comfort."
"And anyways, if she should want to tell anything," Vixley suggested, "you can everlastingly blacklist her at the factory with what you know."
"Yes," Madam Spoll assented; "she's got a record herself, only she hasn't got sense enough to realize on it the way I do on mine. Is they any bigger fool than a girl that's in love?"
"Only a man that is," Vixley offered sagely.
"Oh,men!" she exclaimed contemptuously. "I believe they ain't more'n but three real ones alive to-day!"
The Professor's eyes snapped. "Well, they's women enough, thank the Lord!"
"Well," said Doctor Masterson, "I got to go to work; I'm keeping office hours in the evening now and I have to hump. So long, Gertie, I'll be all ready for Payson, but you and Vixley have got to keep jollying him along. You want me to hold him about a month? I'll see what I can do, and if I get a lead, I'll let you know." He shook hands and left them.
"I ain't so sure of the Doc as I'd like to be," said Madam Spoll after he had gone.
"Nor me neither," Vixley replied. "We've got to watch him, I expect, but he'll do for a starter and we can fix him if he gets funny. There ain't nothin' like coöperation, Gertie."
As Madam Spoll sat down again to open a bottle of beer she had taken from beneath the wash-stand, Professor Vixley began to twirl his fingers in his lap and snicker to himself.
"What are you laughing at, Vixley?" she asked, pouring out two frothing glasses.
"I was just a-thinkin' about Pierpont Thayer. Don't you remember that dope who went nuts on spiritualism and committed suicide?"
"No, I don't just recall it; what about it?"
"Why, he got all wound up in the circles here—Sadie Crum, she had him on the string for a year, till he didn't know where he was at. He took it so hard that one day he up and shot hisself and left a note pinned on to his bed that said: 'I go to test the problem.' Lord! I'd 'a' sold every one of my tricks and all hers to him for a five-dollar bill! Why didn't he come tometo test his problem? He'd 'a' found out quick enough."
"Yes, and after you'd told him all about how it was done, I'll guarantee that I could have converted him again in twenty minutes."
"I guess that's right," said Vixley. "Them that want to believe are goin' to, and you can't prevent 'em, no matter what you do. They're like hop fiends—they've got to have their dope whether or no, and just so long as they can dream it out they're happy."
CHAPTER VIII
ILLUMINATION
It is easy to imagine the virtuous pride with which the civil engineer, Jasper O'Farrell, set about the laying out of the town of San Francisco in 1846. Here was the ideal site for a city—a peninsula lying like a great thumb on the hand of the mainland, between the Pacific Ocean and a deep, land-locked bay, an area romantically configured of hills and valleys, with picturesque mountain and water views, the setting sun in the west and Mount Diablo a sentinel in the east; to the northward, the sea channel of the Golden Gate overhung by the foot-hills of Tamalpais.
There was still chance to amend and improve the old town site of Yerba Buena, the little Spanish settlement by the cove in the harbor, whose straight, narrow streets had been artlessly ruled by Francisco de Haro, alcalde of the Mission Dolores. He had marked out upon the ground, northerly, La Calle de la Fundacion and the adjacent squares necessary for the little port of entry in 1835. Four years later, when Governor Alvarado directed a new survey of the place, Jean Vioget extended the original lines with mathematical precision to the hills surrounding the valley; and it would have been possible to correct that artistic blunder of the simple-minded alcalde. But Jasper O'Farrell had seen military service with General Sutter; his ways were stern and severe, his esthetic impulses, if he had any, were heroically subdued. Market Street, indeed, he permitted to run obliquely, though it went straight as a bullet towards the Twin Peaks. The rest of the city he made one great checkerboard, in defiance of its natural topography.
As one might constrict the wayward fancies of a gipsy maiden to the cold, tight-laced ethics of a puritanical creed, so O'Farrell bound the city that was to be for ever to a gridiron of right-angled streets and blocks of parallelograms. He knew no compromise. His streets took their straight and narrow way, up hill and down dale, without regard to grade or expense. Unswerving was their rectitude. Their angles were exactly ninety degrees of his compass, north and south, east and west. Where might have been entrancingly beautiful terraces, rising avenue above avenue to the heights, preserving the master-view of the continent, now the streets, committed to his plan, are hacked out of the earth and rock, precipitous, inaccessible, grotesque. So sprawls the fey, leaden-colored town over its dozen hills, its roads mounting to the sky or diving to the sea.
So the stranger beholds San Francisco, the Improbable. Its pageantry is unrolled for all to see at first glance. Never was a city so prodigal of its friendship and its wealth. She salutes one on every crossing, welcoming the visitor openly and frankly with her western heart. In every little valley where the slack, rattling cables of her car-lines slap and splutter over the pulleys, some great area of the town exhibits a rising colony of blocks stretching up and over a shoulder of the hill to one side and to the other. Atop every crest one is confronted with farther districts lying not only beneath but opposite, across lower levels and hollows, flanking one's point of vantage with rival summits. San Francisco is agile in displaying her charms. As you are whirled up and down on the cable-car, she moves stealthily about you, now lagging behind in steep declivities, now dodging to right or left in stretches of plain or uplifted hillsides, now hurrying ahead to surprise you with a terrifying ascent crowned with palaces. Now she is all water-front and sailors' lodging-houses; in a trice she turns Chinatown, then shocks you with a Spanish, Italian or negro quarter. Past the next rise, you find her whimsical, fantastic with garish flats and apartment houses. She lurks in and about thousands of little wooden houses, and beyond, she drops a little park into your path, discloses a stretch of shimmering bay or unveils magnificently the green, gently-sloping expanse of the Presidio.
No other city has so many points of view, none allures the stranger so with coquetry of originality and fantasy. Some cities have single dominant hills; but she is all hills, they are a vital part of herself. They march down into the town and one can not escape them, they stride north and west and must be climbed. The important lines of traffic accept these conditions and plunge boldly up and down upon their ways. And so, going or returning from his home, the city is always with the citizen—from Nob Hill he sees ships in the harbor and the lights of the Mission; from Kearney Street he keeps his view of Telegraph Hill and Twin Peaks—the San Franciscan is always in San Francisco, the city of extremes.
Of all this topographical chaos, the most spectacular spot is Telegraph Hill. To the eastward on the harbor side, it rises a sheer precipice over a hundred feet high, where a concrete company has quarried stone for three decades despite protest, appeal, injunction and the force of arms. To the north and west the hill falls away into a jumble of streets, cliffed and hollowed like the billows of the sea, crusted with queer little houses of the Latin quarter.
Francis Granthope, after the Chinese supper, had found himself swayed by an obsession. The thought of Clytie Payson was insistent in his mind. She troubled him. He recognized the symptom with a grim sense of its ridiculousness. It was, according to his theory, the first sign of love; but the idea of his being in love was absurd. Certainly he desired her, and that ardently. She stimulated him, she stirred his fancy. But he was jealous of his freedom; he would not be snared by a woman's eyes. Marriage, indeed, he had contemplated, but, to his mind, marriage was but a part of the game, a condition which would insure for him an attractive companion, a desirable standing; in short, a point of vantage. What had begun to chafe him, now, was a sort of compulsion that Clytie had put upon him. Somehow he could not be himself with her—he was self-conscious, timid—he was sensitive to her vibrations, he was swayed by her fine moods and impulses. Though the strain was gentle, still she coerced him. He felt an impulse to shake himself free.
In this temper, he decided, while he was at dinner, to see her, and, if he could, regain possession of the situation, master her by the use of those arts by which he had so often won before. He would, at least, if he could not cajole her, assert his independence. No doubt he had been misled by her claims of intuitive power. He would put that to the test, as well.
It was already after sunset when he started across Union Square. Kearney Street was alight with electric lamps and humming with life. He walked north, passing the gayer retail shopping district towards the cheaper stores, pawnshops and quack doctors' offices to where the old Plaza, rising in a green slope to Chinatown, displayed the little Stevenson fountain with its merry gilded ship. Here the waifs and the strays of the night were already wandering, and he responded to frequent appeals for charity.
Beyond was the dance-hall district, where women of the town were promenading, seeking their prey; sailors and soldiers descended into subterranean halls of light and music. Then came the Italian quarter with its restaurants and saloons.
He paused where Montgomery Avenue diverged, leading to the North Beach, consulted his watch, and found that it was too early to call. He decided to kill time by going up Telegraph Hill, and kept on up Kearney Street.
Across Broadway, it mounted suddenly in an incline so steep, that ladder-like frameworks flat upon the ribbed concrete sidewalks were necessary for ascent. Two blocks the hill rose thus, encompassed by disconsolate and wretched little houses, with alleys plunging down from the street into the purlieus of the quarter; then it ran nearly level to the foot of the hill. The track there was up steps and across hazardous platforms, clambering up and up to a steep path gullied by the winter rains, and at last, by a stiff climb, to the summit of the hill.
From here one could see almost the whole peninsula, the town falling away in waves of hill and valley to the west. The bay lay beneath him, the docks flat and square, as if drawn on a map, red-funneled steamers lying alongside. In the fairway, vessels rode at anchor, lighted by the moon. The top of the hill was commanded by a huge, castellated, barn-like white structure which had once been used as a pleasure pavilion, but was now deserted, save by a rascally herd of tramps. At a near view its ruined, deserted grandeur showed unkempt and dingy. By its side, a city park, crowning the crest, scantily cultured and improved, indicated the first rude beginning of formal arrangement. Moldering, displaced concrete walls and seats showed what had been done and neglected.
He skirted the eastern slope of the hill, went up and down one-sided streets, streets that dipped and slid longitudinally, streets tilted transversely, keeping along a path at the top till he came to the cliff.
Here was the prime scandal of the town, naked in all its horror. The quarrymen had, with their blasting, robbed the hill inch by inch, foot by foot and acre by acre. Already a whole city block had disappeared, caving gradually away to tumble to the talus of gravel at the foot of the steep slope. For years, the neighborhood had been terrorized by this irresistible, ever-approaching fate. The edge of the precipice drew nearer and nearer the houses, bit off a corner of the garden here, ate away a piece of fence there, till the danger-line approached the habitations themselves. Nor did it stop there; it crept below the floors, it sapped the foundations till the house had to be abandoned. Then with a crash, some afternoon, the whole structure would fall into the hollow. House after house had disappeared, family after family had been ruined. The crime was rank and outrageous, but it had not been stopped.
As Granthope walked, he saw bits of such deserted residences. Here a flight of stone steps on the verge of the height, there fences running giddily off into the air or drain-pipes, broken, sticking over the edge. The hazardous margin was now fenced off—at any moment a huge mass might slip away and slide thundering below. At the foot of the cliff stood the lead-colored building housing the stone-crusher, whose insatiate appetite had caused this sacrifice of property. It was ready to feed again on the morrow.
He walked to the edge and looked down a sharp incline, a few rods away from the most dangerous part of the cliff. He was outside the fence, now, with nothing between him and the slope. As he stood there, a dog barked suddenly behind him. He turned—his foot slipped upon a stone, twisted under him, and he fell outward. He clutched at the loose dirt, but could not save himself and rolled over and over down the slope. Forty feet down his head struck a boulder and he lost consciousness.
He came to himself with a blinding, splitting pain in his head; his body was stiff and cold in the night air. He lay half-way down the slope, his hands and face were scratched and bleeding, his clothes were torn. He was motionless for some time, endeavoring to collect his senses, wondering vaguely what to do. Then he stirred feebly, tried his limbs to see what damage had been done and found he had broken no bones. His ankle, however, was badly strained, and it ached severely. As he sank back again, far down the hill towards the crusher building, a voice came up to him:
"Francis! Francis!"
It penetrated his consciousness slowly. Still a little dazed, he rolled over and looked down to the deserted street below. He tried to rise and his ankle crumpled under him. He answered as loud as he could cry, then lay there watching.
Sansome Street lay bare in the moonlight. On the near side the hill sloped up to him from the rock crusher. On the other side was a row of gaunt buildings—a pickle factory, a fruit-canning works, and so on, to the dock. An electric car flashed by and, as it passed, he saw a woman moving to and fro at the foot of the talus.
He sat up as well as he could on the slope and again shouted down to her. She stopped instantly. Then, waving her hand, she started to scramble up the slippery gravel of the hill.
As she ascended, she had to zigzag this way and that to avoid sliding back. Part of the time, she was forced to go almost on hands and knees. The moon was behind her, throwing her face into shadow. She climbed steadily without calling to him again. When she was a few yards away, he cried to her:
"Miss Payson! Is that you?"
"Yes! Don't try to move, I'm coming."
She reached him at last and knelt before him anxiously. Her tawny, silken hair was loosened under her hat and streamed down into her eyes. She had on a red cloth opera cloak with an ermine collar; this was partly open, showing, underneath, a white silk evening dress cut low in the neck. Her hands were covered with white suede gloves to the elbow—they were grimy and torn into ribbons. Her white skirt, too, was ripped and soiled. She put her hand to her hair and tossed it back, then took his hands in hers.
"Are you hurt?" she asked anxiously.
"Not much. I believe I was stunned. I have no idea how long I've been here. What time is it?"
"It is almost eleven. Oh, I'm so glad I found you! I'm going to help you down." She stooped lower to assist him.
"But I don't understand," he said in astonishment. "How in the world did you happen to come? What does it all mean?" His bewilderment was comic enough to draw forth her flashing smile.
"We'll talk about that afterwards. We must get down this hill first. Oh, I hope there are no bones broken."
"Oh, no, I'm all right," he insisted, "but it's like a dream! Let me think—I was up on Telegraph Hill, and I slipped and fell over—then I must have been unconscious until you came.—How did you happen to come? I don't understand. It's so mysterious."
"You must get up now. See if you can walk." She gently urged him. "I'll explain it all when you're safe down there where we can get help."
With her assistance he raised himself slowly, but the pain in his ankle was too great for him to support his own weight. He dropped limply down again and smiled up at her.
"I think I might make it if I had a crutch of some kind—any stick would do."
"Wait, I'll see if I can find one."
She left him, to go down, slipping dangerously at times, using her hands to save herself. Part-way down she found an old broom—the straw was worn to a mere stub, and this she brought back.
With its aid and that of her steady arm, he hobbled down foot by foot. He slid and fell with a suppressed groan more than once, but she was always ready to lift him and support his weight in the steeper descents. The lower part of the hill fanned out to a more gradual slope, where it was easier going. They reached the sidewalk at last and he sat down upon a large rock almost exhausted.
Just then an electric car came humming down Sansome Street. In an instant she was out on the track signaling for it to stop.
"If you pass a cab or a policeman, please send them down here!" she commanded. "This gentleman has met with an accident and we must have help to take him home."
The conductor nodded, staring at her, as she stood in her disheveled finery, splendidly bold in the moonlight, like a dismounted Valkyr. The car plowed on and left them. Calmly she stripped off her slashed gloves and repaired the disorder of her hair. A long double necklace of pearls caught the moonlight, and in the front breadth of her gown, a rent showed a pale blue silken skirt beneath. Granthope, bedraggled and smeared with blood and dust, was as grotesque a figure. The humor of the picture struck them at once, and they burst into laughter.
Then, "How did you know?" he said.
She became serious immediately. "It was very strange. I was at a reception with Mr. Cayley. I happened to be sitting on a couch by myself, when—I don't know how to describe the sensation—but I saw you, or felt you, lying somewhere, on your back. I was so frightened I didn't know what to do. I knew something had happened, yet I didn't know where to find you. I gave it up and tried to forget about it, but I couldn't—it was like a steady pain—then I knew I had to come. It seemed so foolish and vague that I didn't want to ask Mr. Cayley to go on such a wild-goose chase with me. Father understands me better and if he'd been there I would have brought him along. So I slipped out alone, put on my things and took a car down-town. I seemed to know by instinct where to get off—you should have seen the way the conductors stared at me!—and I turned right down this way, trusting to my intuitions. I seemed to be led directly to the foot of the cliff here where I first called you."
"Yes, you called 'Francis,' didn't you?" he said, looking up at her in wonder.
"Did I? I don't know what I said—if I did it was as instinctively done as all the rest. We'll have to go into business together." Her laugh was nervous and excited.
He frowned. "Miss Payson, I don't know how to thank you—it was a splendid thing to do."
"Oh, it has been a real adventure—almost my first. But it's not over yet. I must take you home now. What a sight I am! You, too! Wait—let me clean you off a little."
She stooped over him and, with a lace handkerchief, lightly brushed his face free of the dust, wiped the blood away, then, with gentle fingers, smoothed his black hair. Both trembled slightly at the contact. She stopped, embarrassed at her own boldness, then stood more constrained and self-conscious, till the rattling wheels of a carriage were heard. A hack came clattering up over the cobble-stones and drew up at the curb. The driver jumped down from his seat.
There were a few words of explanation and direction, then the man and Clytie, one on either side, helped Granthope into the vehicle. She followed and the cab drove off up-town. For a few moments the two sat in silence, side by side. An electric lamp illuminated her face for an instant as the carriage whirled past a corner. Her eyes were shining, her lips half open, as she looked at him.
The sight of her, and the excitement of her romantic intervention, made him forget his pain. He felt her spell again, and now with this appearance how much more strongly! There was no denying her magic after such a bewildering manifestation. The event had, also, brought her humanly more near to him—he had felt the strong touch of her hand, her breath on his face—the very disorder of her attire seemed to increase their intimacy. He leaned back to enjoy the full flavor of her charm. He was suddenly aroused by her placid, even voice:
"Mr. Granthope, there's one thing you didn't tell me the other day, when you described that scene at Madam Grant's."
He caught the name with surprise, remembering that he had never spoken it to her. In her mention of it he felt a vague alarm.
"What?" He heard his voice betray him.
"That there was a little boy with her, that day." Clytie turned to him, and for the first time he felt a sudden fear that she would find him out.
"Was there a little boy there? How do you know?"
She kept looking at him, and away, as she spoke. In the drifting of her glances, however, her eyes seemed to seek his continuously, rather than continually to escape. "Quite by accident—never mind now. But this is what is most strange of all—I didn't tell you, before—while I was there, that time, so many years ago—you know what strange fancies children have—you know how, if one is at all sensitive to psychic influence, how much stronger and how natural it seems when one is young—well, all the while, I seemed to feel there was some one else there—some one I couldn't see!"
She was too much for him, with such intuition. His one hope was, now, that she would not plumb the whole depth of his deceit. He managed his expression, drawing back into the shadow.
"Did you know who it was, there?"
"No—only that I was drawn secretly to some one who was there, near me, out of sight. Of course, I've forgotten much of the impression, but now, as I remember it, it almost seems to me as if this little boy—whoever he was—must be related to me in some vague way—as if we had something in common. I wish I could find out about it. You know better the rationale of these things—they come to me only in flashes of intuition, suddenly, when I least expect them."
He sought desperately to divert her from the subject, summoning to his aid the tricks experience had taught him. First to his hand came the ruse of personality.
"You called me 'Francis' before—that was strange, for few people call me that or Frank nowadays—only one or two who have known me a long time."
"Ah, I didn't know what I was saying. It was strange, wasn't it? But you won't accuse me of coquetry at such a time, will you? You were in danger—I thought only of that."
"Oh, I don't mind," he said playfully.
"Nor do I."
"You'll call me Francis?"
She smiled. "Every time I rescue you."
There was evidently no lead for him there. He had to laugh, and give it up. Clytie's mood grew more serious.
"Mr. Cayley was telling me how interesting you were after the ladies had left; really, he was quite complimentary. He told me all about that absurd Bennett affair you talked about."
"Yes, it was an extraordinary case." He wondered what was coming.
"I mean the story was absurd to hear, but I can't help wondering what sort of people they were who would deceive an old man like that. It seems pitiful to me that any one could have the heart to do it—and for money, too."
Granthope cursed his indiscretion. Must she find this out, too? Was no part of his life, past or present, safe from her? If so, he might as well give her up now. It seemed impossible to conceal anything from her clear vision. But he still strove to put her off.
"Oh, these people were weak and ignorant—we haven't all the same advantages or the same sensitiveness to honor and truth. They were used to this sort of thing, hardened to it, and perhaps unconscious of their baseness by a constant association with such deceptions."
"But didn't Mr. Bennett have any friends to warn him—to show these people up in their true light?"
"Oh, that was no use. It was tried, yes; that is, he was shown his carriage, for instance, after it was sold, but he refused to believe it was the same one. He confessed that it was just like it, but he knew that his was then on the planet Jupiter. I don't think the mediums themselves could have convinced him."
"Think of it! It makes their swindling even worse. If he had doubted, if he had tried to trap them, it wouldn't be quite so bad, it would have been a battle of brains—but to impose on such credulity, to make a living by it—oh, it's unthinkable!"
"Well, after all, they made him happy. In a way, they were telling him only pleasant lies, as a parent might tell a child about Santa Claus and the fairies."
He could not keep it up much longer. It was too perilous; and he played for her sympathy. "After all, I suppose my business is about as undignified."
"But it's really a science, isn't it? Mr. Cayley gave me to understand that you had a convincing theory to explain all personal physical characteristics."
"There's a little more to palmistry than that, I think—an instinctive feeling for character."
"Of course. You must have felt my personality intuitively, or you would never have been able to get it so well. But it was most extraordinary of all, I think, the way you got my name. How do you account for that?"
He felt the net closing about him.
"Oh, I'm sometimes clairaudient."
She took it up with animation. "Are you? I must try to send you a message!"
"Haven't you?" he said, still attempting to keep the talk less serious. "All day I have heard you saying, 'You must learn.' But learn what?"
"It seems so queer to me that you shouldn't know, yourself."
"Then tell me. Explain."
"No, you'll find out, I think."
He waited a while, for a twinge of pain gave him all he could do to control himself. Somehow it sobered him. "I wish I dared to be friends with you."
She gave him her hand simply and he returned its cordial pressure. He was sincere enough, now. He was not afraid of mere generalities.
"I'm not worthy of your friendship," he said. "I'd hate to have you know how little I am worth it. If you knew how I have lived—what few chances I have had to know any one really worth while. I've never yet had a friend who was able to understand me."
"I have given you my hand," she replied, "and I shall not withdraw it. It is my intuition, you see, and not my reason, that makes me trust you."
They relapsed for a while into silence. Then, as the cab turned up into Geary Street, past the electric lights, she went on as if she had been thinking it out to herself.
"You know what I said the other day about its being easier to say real things at the first meeting. I am afraid I said too much then. But I was impatient. I felt that I might never see you again and I wanted to give you the message. Now, when I feel sure that we're going to be friends, I am quite willing to wait and let it all come about naturally. The only thing I demand is honesty."
"Is that all?" he asked, with a touch of sarcasm.
She laughed unaffectedly. "Are you finding it so hard?"
The cab drew up to the curb at the door of his rooms. Immediately she became solicitous, helping him to alight. He used the broom for a crutch, and, scratched and torn, his clothes still stained with clay, she in her harlequin of dirt and rags, they presented an extraordinary spectacle under the electric light, to a man on the sidewalk who was approaching leisurely, swinging his stick. As they reached the entrance he drew nearer, making as if to speak to them; instead, he lifted his hat, stared at them and passed on. It was Blanchard Cayley.
Clytie's face went red. Cayley turned for an instant to look at them again and then proceeded on his way. Granthope did not notice him.
Clytie disregarded his protest, and, saying that she would see him safely to his room, at least, accompanied him up-stairs.
As he fumbled for his key in his pocket, the office door was suddenly opened and Fancy Gray appeared upon the threshold.
Her eyebrows went up and Granthope's went down. Her eyes had flown past him to stare at Clytie. The two women confronted each other for a tense moment without a word.
Fancy had taken off her jacket; her hair was braided down her back. She wore an embroidered linen blouse turned away at the neck, and pinned over her heart was a little silver chatelaine watch with a blue dial. It rose and fell as she drew breath suddenly.
"Mr. Granthope has met with an accident," Clytie announced, the first to recover from the shock of surprise.
"I should say he had," was her comment, "and you, too?" Then she laughed nervously. "It must have been a draw."
Clytie did not catch the allusion. "I happened to find him and brought him back," she explained. "He had fallen down the cliff on Telegraph Hill."
As Granthope limped in, Fancy put a few more wondering inquiries, which he answered in monosyllables. Seeing Fancy so disconcerted, Clytie left Granthope in a chair and turned directly to her with a conciliatory gesture.
"We always seem to meet in queer circumstances, Miss Gray, don't we?" she said kindly. "It's really most fortunate that you happened to be here at work. I don't quite know what I should have done, all alone, but I'm sure you will do all that's necessary for Mr. Granthope, better than I. I must hurry home; father will be expecting me."
During this speech, Fancy's eyes had filled, and now they shone soft with gratitude.
"Oh," she said, "I can fix him up all right. It's only a bad strain, I guess."
Granthope watched the two women in silence.
"Well, then, I'll go." Clytie walked to the mirror, smiled with Fancy at the image she saw there, touched her hat and rubbed her face with her handkerchief. Then she held out her hand with a charming simplicity.
"I do wish you'd come and see me sometime, Miss Gray!" she said.
Fancy choked down something in her throat before she replied.
"I will—sometime—sure. If youreallywant to see me."
"Yes, I really do." Clytie smiled again. Then she went up to Granthope. "Good night, Mr. Granthope, I'm sure I'm leaving you in kind hands. I hope it won't prove a serious injury. And—remember!" Then, bowing to both, she left the room and went down to her cab.
Two vertical lines were furrowed in Granthope's brow. He turned to Fancy with a look that barely escaped being angry.
"God! I'm sorry you were here!"
"Yes? That's easily remedied; you only have to say the word."
"Too late, now!" His tone was sad rather than cruel.
"I hardly expected you to bring home company—" she began.
"I'm sure it was as much a surprise to me—"
"I'm sorry, Frank, but I had to see you—Vixley was here after you left."
He groaned with the pain his ankle gave him and she flew to him and knelt before his chair.
"Oh, Frank, I'm so sorry. What can I do for you? First, let me take off your shoe and attend to your foot. I can run out and get something to put on it. It was awkward, my being here—but I don't mind on my own account, so much. If it embarrassed you, forgive me."
"It's worse than that," he said.
"You mean—that youcarefor her?"
"I don't know what I do mean—but you'll have to go."
She looked up at him for a moment, searching his drawn face.
"I will, just as soon as I've bound up your ankle and got your couch ready. It won't take long."
"No, I can attend to that myself. I'll telephone for a doctor and have him fix me up. You must go now."
"All right. Just wait till I put on my jacket and do up my hair."
Walking off, proudly, she opened the door of the closet and stood before the mirror there, while he, a limp, relaxed figure in the arm-chair, watched her as she unbraided her hair and combed it out in a magnificent coppery cascade to her waist. Tossing her head, she said:
"Vixley's laying for you, Frank! You'd better watch out for him. It's something shady about the old man's past, I believe. Anyway, I hope you'll fool 'em, Frank!"
With this complication of his position, he bent his head on his hand as if he were weary. "I don't know what I'm going to do," he said. "It's too much for me, I'm afraid."
"What's the matter?" said Fancy solicitously. "Didn't I work it right? Honest, Frank, I didn't give you away a bit—I didn't tell him a word. You know my work isn't lumpy—I just pumped him. I beat him at his own game, and it didn't taste so good, either. Oh, I'm so sorry if I did anything to hurt you. I'd die first!"
As he did not answer her she came over to him and knelt on the floor, seizing his hand. Her tears fell upon it.
"You've been mighty good to me, Frank, you sure have! You took me off the streets when I was starving. I don't know whatever would have become of me. I suppose I'd gone right down the line, if it hadn't been for you. You're the only friend I've got, and I only wish I could do something to prove how grateful I am. Honest, I thought I was helping you out when I kept Vixley here. You don't think—you don't think Ilikehim—do you? Don't saythat, Frank!"
She was speaking in gasps now; her tears were unrestrained. Her hand clutched his so fiercely that he could scarcely bear the pain. He did not dare to look at her.
"I've always been square with you, Frank, haven't I?"
He patted her hand softly.
"We've kept to the compact, haven't we? The compact we made at Alma? You trust me, don't you?"
"Of course! You're all right—you're true blue. I couldn't distrust you. You'll always be the Maid of Alma. It was a game thing you did for me. Nobody else would have done it. You have helped me, but I can't tell you what a corner I'm in." He paused and looked at her intensely. "Fancy—you haven't forgotten—have you?"
She forced a trembling smile, as she said bravely:
"'No fair falling in love'?"
"Yes."
She shook out a laugh and stroked his hand, looking up at him through her tears. "Oh, no danger of that, Frank. You don't know me. I'm all right, sure! Only—and I owe you so much! You've taught me everything. If I could only do something to prove that I'm worth it."
"You can—that's the trouble. I believe I'm almost cur enough to ask it of you."
"What is it? Tell me, quick! You know I'd black your boots for you. I'd do anything."
"Did you notice Miss Payson's face when she saw you?"
"Yes." Fancy dropped her head.
"I'd hate to have her suspect—if she thought—"
"Oh!" She sprang to her feet and stood as proud as a lioness. "Is that it? You want me to go for good?" Even now there was no anger in her look or tone. The little silver watch heaved up and down on her breast.
He sought for a kind phrase. "I'm afraid it would be better—it makes me feel like a beast—of course, you understand—" his eyes went to her, pleading.
"Then itisMiss Payson? Oh, Frank, why didn't you tell me! You might have trusted me! You ought to have known better! Haven't I always said that when the woman who could make you happy did come, how glad I'd be for you?"
"You're really not hurt, then? I was afraid—"
"Poor old Frank! You goose! Of course not—it makes me sorry to think of leaving you, that's all. Never mind—there's nothing in the race but the finish! I'm all right." She had become a little hysterical in her actions, but he was too distracted to notice it.
"I'll let you have all the money you want—I'll get you a good place——" he began.
She shook her head decidedly. "Cut that out, please, Frank; but thanks, all the same. If I ever want any money, I'll come to you. Why shouldn't I? But not now. Don't pay me to go away—that sounds rotten. I'll get a position all right. Didn't I turn down that secretary's place only last week? But I guess I'll travel on my looks for a while. I'm flush."
"I hope I can tell her all about this, sometime," he said wearily.
"Bosh! What's the use? Thank God some women know that some women are square without being told. Men seem to think we're all cats. Even women talk of each other as if they were a different sort of human animal. But not Miss Payson—she's a thoroughbred. I can seethatall right. You can't fool Fancy Gray about petticoats. I take off my hat to her. She's got every womanyouever had running after you beaten a mile. Don't you worry—she'll never be surprised to find that a woman can be square. Well, I'll fade away then."
As she talked she buttoned up her jacket and stuck the hat pin in her hair. Now her eyes grew dreamier and she went over and sat on the arm of his chair and put her hand on his hair affectionately, saying:
"Say, Frank, I don't know—after all, perhaps sometime you might just tell her this—sometime when the thing's all going straight, when she's got over—well, what I saw in her eyes to-night—when she finds out what you're worth—when she really knows how good you are—you just tell her this—say: 'There's one thing about Fancy Gray, she always played fair!' She'll know then; but just now, you can be careful of her—watch out what you do with her, she's going to suffer a whole lot if you don't. You know something about women, but you'll find out that when you're sure enough in love you'll need it all, and what you know isn't a drop in the bucket to what you've got to learn. I hope you'll get it good and hard. It'll do you good. You only know one side now. You'll learn the rest from her. She's not the sort to do things half-way. When she begins to go she'll go the limit."
She leaned over him. "You might give me one kiss just to brace me up, will you? It may take the taste of Vixley off my lips. Well, so long. Don't take any Mexican money! If there's anything I can do, let me know." She rose and tossed a smile at him with her old jaunty grace. Then she patted him on the cheek and went swiftly out.