CHAPTER IXCOMING ONBy artful questions, and apparently innocent remarks to lure his confidence, by a little guess-work, more observation, and a profound knowledge of the frailties of human nature, Madam Spoll had plied Oliver Payson to good advantage.She got a fact here, a suggestion there, and, one at a time, she arranged these items in order, and with them wove a psychological web strong enough to work upon. It was partly hypothetical, partly proved, but, slender and shadowy as it was, upon it was portrayed a faint image of her victim—a pattern sufficient for her use. Every new piece of information was deftly used to strengthen the fabric, until at last it was serviceable as a working theory of his life and could be used to astonish and interest him. Of this whole process he was, of course, unaware, so cleverly disguised was her method, so skilful was her tact. She never frightened her quarry, never permitted him to suspect her. Her errors she frankly acknowledged and set down to the ignorance of her guides. She had, indeed, many holes by which she could escape—set formulæ for covering her petty failures.After two or three interviews, she had filled up almost all the weak spots in her web, and was prepared to encompass her victim by wiles with which to bleed him.Mr. Payson had gone away from his first interview limping slightly more than usual, and had talked considerably about his ailment to his daughter. Clytie, not knowing what had increased his hypochondria, was inclined to laugh at his fears and complaints. He found a more sympathetic listener in Blanchard Cayley, who took him quite seriously and discoursed for an hour in Payson's office upon the possibilities of internal disorders, such as the medium had mentioned.The result was a visit to Doctor Masterson.The healer's quarters were two flights up in one of the many gloomy buildings on Market Street, half lodging-rooms, half offices, inhabited by chiropodists, cheap tailors, "painless" dentists and such riffraff. The stair was steep and the halls were narrow. The doctor's place was filled with a sad half-light that made the rows of bottles on the shelves, the skull in the corner and the stuffed owl seem even more mysterious. The room was dusty and ill-kept; the floor was covered with cold linoleum.The magnetic healer's shrewd eyes glistened and shifted behind his spectacles; the horizontal wrinkles in his forehead, under his bald pate, drew gloomily together as Mr. Payson poured out the story of his trouble. For a time the doctor said nothing. Then he took a vial full of yellow liquid from his table, carried it to the window, held it to the light, examined it solemnly and put it back. He sat down again and looked Mr. Payson over. Then he tilted back in his chair, stuck a pair of dirty thumbs in the armholes of his plaid waistcoat, and said, "H'm!" Finally, his thin lips parted in a grisly smile showing his blackened teeth.His victim watched, anxiously waiting, with his two hands on the head of his cane. The gloom appeared to affect his spirits; he seemed ready to expect the worst.Doctor Masterson took off his spectacles and wiped them on a yellow silk handkerchief. "It looks pretty serious to me," he said, "but I calculate I can fix you up. It'll cost some money, though. Ye see, it's this way: I'm controlled by an Indian medicine-man named Hasandoka and his band o' sperits. Now, in order to bring this here psychic force to bear on your case, it's bound to take considerable o' my time and their time, and I'll have to go to work and neglect my reg'lar patients. It takes it out o' me, and I can't do but just so much or I peter out. I'll go into a trance and see what Hasandoka has to say, and then you'll be in a condition to know what to decide. O' course, you understand, I ain't no doctor and don't claim to be, but I got control of a powerful psychic force that guides me in my treatment, and I never knew it to fail yet. If my band o' sperits can't help you, nobody can, and you better go to work and make your will right away. See?"Mr. Payson saw the argument and manifested a desire to proceed with the investigation.The doctor loosened his celluloid collar and closed his eyes. In a minute or two he appeared to fall asleep, breathing heavily.Then, through him, the great Hasandoka spoke, in the guttural dialect such as is supposed to be affected by the American Indian, using flowery metaphors punctuated by grunts.The tenor of his communication was that Mr. Payson was undoubtedly afflicted with something which was termed a "complication." He went into fearsome prophecies as to its probable progress downward to the feet, upward to the brain and forward to the kidney, with minor excursions to the liver and lights. The patient's spine was preparing itself for paralysis; it seemed that death was imminent at any moment. Hasandoka expressed his willingness to accept the case, however, and promised to effect a radical cure in a month at most, if treatment were begun immediately, before it was too late. The cure would be accomplished by massage, used in connection with a potent herb, known only to the primitive Indian tribes. After this message Hasandoka squirmed out of the medium's body and the soul of Doctor Masterson squirmed in again. There were the customary spasmodic gestures of awakening before he opened his eyes."Well, what did he tell you?" he asked.Mr. Payson repeated the communication in a dispirited tone."Bad as that, is it?" said Masterson. "One foot in the grave, so to speak. Well, I tell you what I'll do. I'm interested in your case, for if I can go to work and cure you it'll be more or less of a feather in my cap. See here; I won't charge you but fifty dollars a week till you're cured, and if you ain't a well man in thirty days, I'll hand your money back. That's a fair business proposition, ain't it? I guarantee to put all my time on your case."Mr. Payson gratefully accepted the terms. A meeting for a treatment was appointed for the next day.This time Doctor Masterson was prepared for his victim.[image]Doctor Masterson was prepared for his victim"I've been in direct communication with Hasandoka," he said, "and I'm posted on your case now, and have full directions what to do. The first thing is a good course of massage. Now, which would you prefer to have, a man or a woman? I got a girl I sometimes employ who's pretty slick at massage. She's good and strong and willing and as pretty as a peach, if I do say it—she's got a figger like a waxwork—I think p'raps Flora would help you more'n any one—"Mr. Payson shook his head coldly, saying that he preferred a man."Oh, o' course," Doctor Masterson said apologetically, shrugging his shoulders, "if you don't want her I guess I better go to work and do the rubbing myself, if you'd be better satisfied."The Indian herb prescribed by Hasandoka was, it appeared, a rare, secret and expensive drug. The doctor's price was ten dollars a bottle, in addition to his weekly charge for treatment. He presented Mr. Payson with a bottle of dark brown fluid of abominable odor.The treatment went on thrice a week, the massage being alternated with trances in which the doctor, under the cogent spell of the medicine man, uttered many strange things. The whole effect of this was to reassure Mr. Payson upon the fact that powerful influences were at work for his especial benefit.Whether induced by Hasandoka's aid or by Doctor Masterson's suggestion, an improvement in the patient's mind, at least, did come. He was met, the following week, by the magnetic healer in his rooms with a congratulatory smile. Doctor Masterson inaugurated the second stage of his campaign."Say, you certainly are looking better, ain't you? How's the pain, disappearing, eh? I thought we could bring you around. Yesterday I was in a trance four hours on your case and it took the life out o' me something terrible. I knew then that I was drawing the disease out o' you. You just go to work and walk acrost the room, and see if you ain't improved. We got you started now, and all we got to do is to keep it up till you're absolutely well."Blanchard Cayley also seemed interested when Mr. Payson told him of the improvement."You certainly are growing younger every day," said Cayley. "I don't know how you manage it at your age, in this vile weather, too, but I notice you've got more color and more spring in you. You're a wonder!"One afternoon, during the third week of his treatment, as Mr. Payson was seated in his own office, the door opened and a chubby, roly-poly figure of a woman, with soft brown eyes and hair, came in timidly and looked about, seemingly perplexed and embarrassed. She walked up to his desk."I beg your pardon," she said, "but could you tell me where Mr. Bigelow's office is, in this building? I thought it was on this floor, but I can't find his name on any door."He replied, scarcely glancing at her: "Down at the end of the corridor, on the left."She stood watching him for a moment as he continued his writing, and then ventured to say:"I beg your pardon, sir, but ain't you the gentleman that come to me some time ago to have your life read?"He looked up now and recognized her as the one who had initiated him into the occult world, through the medium of the "Egyptian egg.""Why, yes." He smiled benevolently. "You're Miss Ellis, aren't you?"She seemed pleased. "Yes," she answered; "I hope you don't mind my reminding you of it, but I took an interest in your case more than usual, on account of your reading being so different, and I was surprised to see you here. You're looking much better than you did then. When you come into my place, I said to myself, 'There's a man that'll pass out pretty soon if he don't take care of himself.' You seemed so miserable. Why, I wouldn't know you now, you're so much improved. You must have gained flesh, too. Well, I congratulate you. If you ever want another reading, come around—here's my card, but perhaps you've tried Madam Spoll since. She's the best in the business. I go to her myself sometimes."He walked to the door with her and bowed her out politely.A week after he made another visit to Madam Spoll. The medium was gracious and congratulatory."Why, you look like a new man, that's a fact!" she said. "Between you and me, I never really expected that you could recover, but I knew if anybody could help you it would be Masterson. I suppose he come pretty high, didn't he? Two hundred! For the land sake! I'm sorry you had to fall into the hands of that shark, but, after all, it's cheaper than being dead, ain't it? A desperate disease requires a desperate remedy, they say. I wouldn't take you for more than forty years old now, in spite of your gray hairs."Now," she continued, "you've had experience and you're in a position to know whether there's any truth in spiritualism or not. No matter what anybody tells you about fakes or tricks and all that nonsense—I don't say some so-called mediums ain't collusions—you've demonstrated the truth of it for yourself, and you've found out that we can do what we say. You can afford to laugh at the skeptics and these smart-Alecs who pretend to know it all. What we claim can be proved and you've proved it. Lord, I'd like to know where you'd be now if you hadn't. I've always said: 'Investigate it for yourself, and if you don't get satisfaction, leave it alone for them that do. Go at it in a frank and honest spirit and try to find out the truth, and you'll generally come out convinced.' I don't believe in no underhanded ways of going to work at it neither. If you was going to study up Christian Science, or Mo-homedism, we'll say, you wouldn't be trying to deceive them and giving false names and all, and why should you when you want to find out about the spirit world? What you want to do is to depend upon the character of the information you get, to test the truth of what we claim. You treat us square and we'll treat you square. We ain't infalliable, but we can help. Whatever is to be had from the spirit plane we can generally get it for you.""I'm very much interested," Mr. Payson said. "There does seem to be something in it, and I want to get to the bottom of it. There are several things I'd like to get help on, too.""Do you know, I knew they was something worrying you," she replied, smiling placidly. She laid her fingers to her silken thorax. "I felt your magnetism right here when you came in, and I got a feeling of unpleasantness or worry. It ain't about a little thing either; it's an important matter, now, ain't it?"Mr. Payson, affected by her sympathy, admitted that it was. Under his shaggy eyebrows, his cold eyes watched her anxiously, as if gazing at one who might wrest secrets from him. His belief in her had increased with every sitting, so that now the old man, gray and bald, in his judicial frock-coat, lost something of his influential manner and became more like a child before his teacher, swayed by every word that fell from her lips.Her manner was half patronizing, half domineering. "What did I tell you? You feel as if, well, you don't quite knowwhatto do, and you're saying to yourself all the time, 'Now, whatshallI do?' That's just the condition I get.""Do you think you could help me?""I don't know; I'll try. I ain't feeling very receptive to spirit influence to-day; I guess I overeat myself some; but then, again, I might be very successful; there's no telling. You just let me hold your hands a few minutes and I can see right off whether conditions are favorable or not."He did so. Suddenly she turned her head to one side and spoke as if to an invisible person beside her."Oh, she's here, is she? What is it? She says she can't find him? Well, what about him? What? Shall I tell him that?"She opened her eyes and drew a long breath."Luella is here and she says to tell you that Felicia wants to give you a message. Do you understand who I mean?""Yes, I know. She's the lady you spoke to me about before, with the white hair.""Would her name be Felicia Grant?"He assented timidly, as if fearing to acknowledge it."Well, Felicia says she has found the child—child, the one that was lost. Do you understand?""Yes, yes. Go on!""Really, I don't like to tell you this, Mr. Payson—""Tell anything."Madam Spoll dropped her voice, as if fearful of being overheard. "You was in love with her."Yes." He eyed her glassily."And you was the father of the child?"He nodded, still staring.Madam Spoll smiled complacently. "Well, Felicia says she has found the boy, and she's going to bring him to you as soon as conditions are favorable. She can't do it yet; the time ain't come for it. That's all I can get from her. But Luella says you're worried about a book, and she wants to help you.""How can she help?""Wait a minute." Madam Spoll smoothed her forehead with both hands for a while, then went on: "It seems that she can't work through me so well, it being what you might call a business affair, and she recommends that you try some one else, while I'll try to get the boy. I think a physical medium could help you more. There's Professor Vixley; he's something wonderful in a business way. I confess I can't comprehend it. Are you selling books?""Not exactly.""Well, whatever it is, Vixley's the one to go to. He'll do well by you and you can trust him. I'll just write down his address; you go to see him and tell him I sent you, and I guarantee he'll give satisfaction. About the child, now, we'll have to wait. I shouldn't wonder if you could be developed so you could handle the thing alone. You've got strong mediumistic powers, only they're what you might call asleep and dormant. If you could come to me oftener we might be able to produce phenomena, for you're sensitive, only you don't know how to put your powers to the right use. You could join a circle, I suppose, but the quickest way is to have sittings with me, private."The old man took off his spectacles and wiped off a mist. His hand was trembling. "I might want to try it later," he said at last, "but I'm not quite ready to, yet—I want to think it over. If you really think that this Vixley can help about the book, I'll look him up first. I want it to be a success, and I am a bit worried about it."When he reached home he went into the living-room, to find Blanchard Cayley sitting there at ease, bland, suave and nonchalant. Clytie had not yet returned for dinner. Mr. Payson shook his hand cordially."I'm glad to see you, Blanchard. Been looking over that last chapter of mine? What do you think of it?""I haven't had time to read it yet. I've been expecting Cly home any minute.""How are you getting on with her? Is she still skittish?""Oh, it'll come out all right, I expect," the young man said carelessly."I hope so! She's a good girl. I know she'll see it my way in the end—you just hold on and be nice to her. You know I'm on your side. I'd give a good deal to see Cly married to a good man like you. Strange, she doesn't seem to take any interest in my work at all. If I didn't have you to talk to, I don't know what I'd do. Suppose I read you that last chapter while we're waiting for her. I'd like to get your criticism of it. That trade dollar material has helped me immensely."For half an hour, while Mr. Payson read the driest of dry manuscripts, Blanchard Cayley yawned behind his hand or nodded wisely, with an approving word or two. The old man had pushed up his spectacles over his forehead and held the sheets close to his eyes. He read in a mellow, deep voice, but it was the voice of a pedant."There," he said at last, stacking up the scattered papers. "I guess that will open their eyes, won't it?""It's great; that book will make a sensation.""Well, it isn't finished yet, and what's to come will be better than what I've done. I'm on the track of something that may help it a good deal.""What's that?" said Cayley perfunctorily."See here," Mr. Payson drew his chair nearer and shook his pencil at the young man. "I've had some wonderful experiences lately. You may not believe it, but I tell you there's something in this spiritualistic business. I've been investigating it for a month now all alone, and I'm thoroughly convinced that these mediums do have some sort of power that we don't understand.""Really?" Cayley was beginning to be interested. "I knew you had always been an agnostic, but I had no idea that you had gone into this sort of thing. Have you struck anything interesting?""I certainly have. I went into it in a scientific spirit, as a skeptic, pure and simple, but I've received some wonderful tests. Why, they told me my name the very first thing and a lot about my life that they had no possible way of finding out. The trouble is, they know too much."Cayley laughed. "Found out about your wild oats, I suppose?"Mr. Payson frowned at this frivolity. "There are things they've told me that no one living could possibly know. Whether it's done through spirits or not, it's mysterious business. You ought to go to a séance and see what they can do.""I'd hate to have them tell my past," Cayley said jocosely, "but I don't take much stock in them. They're a gang of fakirs.""They're pretty sharp, if they are. I haven't lived fifty years in the West to be taken in as easily as that. I ought to know something about men by this time. Why, see here! You know what trouble I had with my leg? It was something pretty serious. Well, look at me now. You've noticed the change yourself. I went to a medium and now I'm completely cured. That's enough to give any one confidence, isn't it? It's genuine evidence."Cayley agreed with a solemn nod. "But what about the book?""Why, if they can influence the right forces so that it'll be a success, why shouldn't I give them a trial? Look at hypnotism! Look at wireless telegraphy! For that matter, look at the telephone! Fifty years ago no one would believe that such things were possible. It may be the same with this power, whatever it is, spirits or not. I'm an old man, but I keep up with the times. I'm not going to set myself up for an authority and say, because a thing hasn't seemed probable to me, that I know all about the mysterious forces of nature. I've come to believe that there are powers inherent in us that may be developed successfully."The incipient smile, the attitude of bantering protest had faded from Cayley's face, as the old man spoke. He listened sedately. Oliver Payson was a rich man. He had an attractive, marriageable daughter. Blanchard Cayley was poor, single and without prospects."Of course, there's much we don't yet understand," he said gravely. "One hears all sorts of tales—there must be some foundation to them.""That's so—why, just look at Cly! She's had queer things happen to her ever since she was a child.""Yes, I suppose that's why she's so interested in this palmist person; though I confess I don't take much stock in him.""What do you mean?" Mr. Payson demanded."Why, I thought of course you knew. Granthope, the palmist—you know, the fellow everybody's taking up now—he has been here, hasn't he? I had an idea that Cly had taken rather a fancy to him.""He was here?" Mr. Payson seemed much surprised."Why, I wouldn't have spoken of it for the world if I had known you didn't know—but I've seen her with him several times, and I thought, of course—" Cayley threw it out apologetically in apparent confusion at his indiscretion.Mr. Payson stared. "Granthope, did you say? I believe I have heard of him. Cly and a common palmist? I can't believe it. What can she want of a charlatan like that?""I was sorry to see it myself," Cayley admitted, "but I suppose she knows what she's doing. The man's notorious enough. Only, she ought to be careful.""I won't have it!" Mr. Payson began to storm. "Reading palms for a lot of silly women is a very different thing from spiritualism. I don't mind her going to see him once for the curiosity of the thing, but I won't have him in the house. I'll put a stop to that in a hurry. You say you've seen them together? Where?""Oh, I think it was probably an accidental meeting," he said. "I wish you wouldn't say anything about it, Mr. Payson. Very likely it doesn't mean anything at all. Tell me about this fellow you spoke of going to. Do you think he's all right?""I'll soon find out if he isn't—trust me!" Mr. Payson wagged his head wisely. "His name is Professor Vixley, and I've heard he's a very remarkable man. I'm going to see him next week and see what he can do for me. I'm not one to be fooled by any claptrap; I intend to sift this thing to the bottom.""How do you intend to go about it?" Cayley asked. "I'll tell you what I'd do. I'd ask him to answer a few definite questions. If he can do that, it'll be a pretty good test, even if it is only thought-reading.""If there's anything in thought transference there may be something in spiritualism, too. One's as unexplainable as the other. See here! Suppose I ask him something that I don't know the answer to myself—wouldn't that prove it is not telepathy?""I should say so; but what could you ask?"Mr. Payson had arisen, and was walking up and down the room with his hands behind his back. He stopped to deliberate beside the bookcase, then he took down a volume at random. "Suppose I ask him what the first word is on page one hundred of this book."He looked over at Cayley, then down at the title of the book."The Astrology of the Old Testament—queer I should put my hand on that! I'll try it. I won't look at the page at all." He put the book back on the shelf. "Can't you suggest something? Suppose you give me a question that you know the answer of and I don't."Blanchard Cayley sought for an idea, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. Then he said slowly: "I used to know a girl once in Sacramento who lived next door to me. Try Vixley on her name, why don't you?""Good! I'll do it. Now one more.""You might ask him the number of your watch.""That's a good idea; then I can corroborate that on the spot.""You'd better let me see if there's one there, though," Cayley suggested. "I believe sometimes they are not numbered. Just let me look."Mr. Payson took out his watch and handed it to the young man, who opened the back cover and inspected the works. He noted the number, took a second glance at it and then snapped the cover shut. "All right, if he can tell that number, he's clever." He handed it back to Mr. Payson. "When did you say you were going to see him?" he asked."Next Tuesday or Wednesday, I expect," was the reply. "I've got to go up to Stockton to-morrow, and I may be gone two or three days attending to some business. By the by, Cayley, I heard rather a queer story last week when I was up there. You're interested in these romantic yarns of California; perhaps you'd like to hear this.""Certainly, I should. It may do for my collection of Improbabilities.""Well, I met the cashier of the Savings Bank up there—he's been with the bank nearly thirty years and he told me the story. It seems one noon, about twenty years ago, while he was alone in the bank, a little boy of seven or eight years of age came in, and said he wanted to deposit some money. The cashier asked him how much he had, thinking, of course, that he'd hand out a dollar or two. The boy put a packet wrapped in newspaper on the counter, and by Jove! if there wasn't something over five thousand dollars, in hundred-dollar greenbacks! What do you think of that? The cashier asked the boy where he got so much money, suspecting that it must have been stolen. The boy wouldn't tell him. The cashier started round the counter to hold the boy till he could investigate, and, if necessary, hand him over to the police. The little fellow saw him coming, got frightened, and ran out the door, leaving the money on the counter. He has never been heard from since.""Well, what became of the money, then?""Why, it had to be entered as deposited, of course. The boy had written a name—the cashier doesn't know whether it was the boy's own name or not—on the margin of the newspaper, and the account stands in that name, awaiting a claimant.""What was the name?""The cashier wouldn't tell me, naturally. It has been kept a secret. With the compound interest, the money now amounts to something like double the original deposit.""It's a pity I don't know the name; I might prove an alibi.""Oh, I forgot—and it really is the point of the whole story. The package was wrapped in a copy ofHarper's Weekly, and the boy, whose hands were probably dirty, had happened to press a perfect thumb-print on the smooth paper. Of course, that would identify him, and if any one could prove he was in Stockton at that time, give the name and show that his thumb was marked like that impression, the bank would have to permit him to draw that account.""That lets me out," said Cayley, "unless that particular thumb-print happens to show a banded, duplex, spiral whorl.""What in the world do you mean?" Payson asked."Why, you know thumb-prints have all been classified by Gallon, and every possible variation in the form of the nucleal involution and its envelope has been named and arranged.""I didn't know that," said Payson. "But I did know there were no two thumbs alike. That's the way they identified my partner when he was drowned. He was interested in the subject, having read of the Chinese method, and he happened to have a collection of thumb-prints, including his own, of course, done in India ink. His body was so disfigured and eaten by fishes that he couldn't be recognized until, suspecting it might be he, we proved it by his own marks.""I didn't know you ever had a partner.""Oh, that was years ago, soon after Cly was born. His name was Ichabod Riley. That was a queer story, too. His wife was a regular Jezebel, Madge Riley was, and there's no doubt she poisoned her first two husbands. She was arrested and tried for the murder of the second, but the jury was hung, and she wasn't. Ichabod was supposed to have been accidentally drowned off Black Point, but I have good reason to believe that he committed suicide on account of her. He was afraid of being poisoned as well. She is supposed to have killed her own baby, too."Well," Mr. Payson added, rising, "I've got to go up-stairs and get ready for dinner. You'll stay, won't you?""I'll wait till Cly gets home, at any rate, but I'll not promise to dine."The old man went up-stairs, leaving Cayley alone beside the bookcase.When he returned he found Cayley, cool and suave as ever. Clytie was with him, standing proudly erect on the other side of the room, a red, angry spot on either cheek. She held no dreamy, listless pose now; something had evidently fully awakened her, stinging her into an unaccustomed fervor. Her slender white hands were clasped in front of her, her bosom rose and fell. Her lips were tightly closed.Mr. Payson, near-sighted and egoistic, was oblivious of these stormy signs, and remarked genially: "You're going to stay to dinner, aren't you, Blanchard?"Blanchard Cayley drawled, "I think not, Mr. Payson; I'll be going on, if you'll excuse me," smiling, "and if Cly will.""Don't let us keep you if you have another appointment," she said, without looking at him.He left after a few more words with the old man, who began at last to smell something wrong."What's the matter, Cly?" he asked.She had sat down and was pretending to read. Now she looked up casually:"Oh, nothing much, father, except that he was impertinent enough to question me about something that didn't concern him.""H'm!" Mr. Payson took a seat with a grunt and unfolded his newspaper. "I'm sorry you two don't get on any better.""We'd get on well enough if he'd only believe that when I say 'no' I mean it."He stared at her, suddenly possessed by a new thought. "Is there anybody else in the field, Cly?""There are many other men that I prefer to Blanchard Cayley.""What is this about your being with this palmist chap?""Did Blanchard tell you that?" she asked with exquisite scorn."Have you seen much of this Granthope?""I've seen him four times.""And you have invited him to my house?""He has been here."Mr. Payson rose and shook his eye-glasses at her. "I must positively forbid that!" he exclaimed. "I won't have you receiving that fellow here. From what I hear of him he's a fakir, and I won't encourage him in his attempts to get into society at my expense.""Do you mean to say that you forbid him the house, father? Isn't that a bit melodramatic? I wouldn't make a scene about it. I am twenty-seven and I'm not absolutely a fool. I think you can trust me.""Then what have you been doing with him? What does it all mean, anyway?""As soon as I know what it means, I'll tell you. At present, I think we had better not discuss Mr. Granthope."He blustered for a while longer, iterating his reproaches, then simmered down into a morose condition, which lasted through dinner. Clytie knew better than to discuss the subject with him. Her calmness had returned, though she kept her color and did not talk. The two went into the library and read.Shortly after eight o'clock the door-bell rang. As it was not answered promptly, Mr. Payson, still nervous, irascible and impatient, went out into the hall, growling at the servant's delay.He opened the door, to see Francis Granthope, rather white-faced under his black hair, supporting himself on crutches."Is Miss Payson at home?" he asked, taking off his hat."Yes, she is. Won't you step in? What name shall I give her, please?" Mr. Payson spoke hospitably."Thank you. Mr. Granthope," was the answer.The old man turned suddenly and returned his visitor's hat."I beg your pardon," he said sternly, "but Miss Payson is not at home—for you—and I don't intend that she ever shall be. I have heard enough about you, Mr. Granthope, and I desire to say that I can not consent to your being received in my house. You're a charlatan and a fakir, sir, and I do not consider you either my daughter's social equal nor one with a character respectable enough to associate with her. I must ask you to leave this house, sir, and not to come again."Granthope's eyes glowed, and his jaws came together with determination. But he said only:"Very well, Mr. Payson, I'm sure that I do not care to call if I'm not welcome. This is, of course, no place to discuss the subject, but I shall not come here again without your consent. As to my meeting her again, that lies wholly with her. You may be sure that I shall not annoy her with my attentions if she doesn't care to see me. But I ask you, as a matter of courtesy, to let Miss Payson know that I have called.""See that you keep your word, sir—that's all I have to say," was Mr. Payson's reply, and he stood in the doorway to watch his visitor down the garden walk. He remained there until Granthope had descended the steps, then walked down after him and watched him to the corner.Mr. Payson returned to the library sullenly."That palmist of yours had the impertinence to come here and ask for you," he informed Clytie, "but I sent him about his business, and I expect he won't be back in a hurry."Clytie looked up with a white face. "Mr. Granthope, father?" She rose proudly and faced him. "Do you mean to say that you were rude enough to turn him away? It's impossible!"Mr. Payson walked up and down the room in a dudgeon."I certainly did send him away, and what's more, I told him not to come back."Clytie, without another word, ran out into the hall. The front door was flung open and her footsteps could be heard on the gravel walk. Mr. Payson seated himself sulkily.In five minutes more she had returned, slowly, her hair blown into a fine disorder, the color flaming in her cheeks, her eyes quickened."What in the world have you been doing?" her father demanded."I wanted to apologize for your rudeness," she answered, "but I was too late."CHAPTER XA LOOK INTO THE MIRROR"He gives exact and truthful revelations of all love affairs, settles lovers' quarrels, enables you to win the affection and esteem of any one you desire, causes speedy and happy marriages—"Granthope put down the paper with a look of disgust. It was his own advertisement, and it had appeared daily for months. He took up his desk telephone with a jerk, and called up theChroniclebusiness office."This is Granthope, the palmist. Please take out my displayed ad., and insert only this: 'Francis Granthope, Palmist. 141 Geary St., Readings, Ten Dollars. Only by Appointment. Ten till Four.'"There was now a red-headed office boy in the corner where Fancy Gray used to sit. Granthope missed her jaunty spirit and unfailing comradeship. Not even his endeavor to give his profession a scientific aspect amused him any longer. He had lost interest in his work. He was uneasy, dissatisfied, blue. He went into his studio listlessly, with a frown printed on his brow. Until his first client appeared he lay upon the big couch, his eyes fixed upon the light.He had been there a few moments when his office boy knocked, and opening the door, injected his red head."Say, dere's a lady in here to see you, Mr. Granthope!""Who is she?"The boy grinned. "By de name of Lucie. Says you know her.""Tell her I can't see her."Granthope turned away, and the boy left.The room was as quiet as a padded cell, full of a soft, velvety blackness, except where the single drop-lamp lighted up the couch. Ordinarily the place was, in its strange dark emptiness, a restful, comforting retreat. Now it imprisoned him. Above his head the great ring of embroidered zodiacal signs shone with a golden luster. They were the symbols of the mysterious dignity of the past, of the dark ages of thought, of priestcraft and secret wisdom of the blind centuries that had gone. But, a modern, incongruously set about with such medieval relics, he felt for the first time, undignified. In their time these emblems had represented all that existed of knowledge. Now, to him they stood for all that was left of ignorance and superstition; and it was upon such instruments he played.He read palms perfunctorily that Saturday. He seemed to hear his own voice all the while, and some dissociated function of his mind scoffed continually at his chicanery. It was the same old formula: "You are not understood by those about you. You crave sympathy, and it is refused. You are extraordinarily sensitive, but when you are most hurt you often say nothing. You have an intuitive knowledge of people. You have a wonderful power of appreciation and criticism. People confide in you. You are impulsive, but your instinct is usually sure"—the same professional, easy rigamarole, colored with what hints his quick eyes gave him or his flagging imagination suggested.Women listened avidly, drinking in every word. How could he help telling them what they loved so to hear? They asked questions so suggestive that a child might have answered. They prolonged the discussion of themselves, obviously enjoying his apparent interest. He caught himself again and again playing with their credulity, their susceptibility, and hated himself for it. They lingered, smiling self-consciously, and he delayed them with a look. In very perversity, he began deliberately to flatter their vanity in order to see to what inordinate pitch of conceit their minds would rise. He affected indifference, and even scorn—they followed after him still more eagerly. He grew, at last, almost savagely critical, an instinct of cruelty aroused by such complacent, egregious egoism. They fawned on him, like spaniels under the lash.After a solitary dinner he returned to his rooms. For an hour or two he tried to lose himself in the study of a medical book. Medicine had long been his passion and his library was well equipped. Had he been reading to prepare himself for practice he could not have been more thorough. To-night, however, he found it hard to fix his attention, and in despair he took up a volume of Casanova'sMemoirs. There was an indefatigable charlatan! The fascinating Chevalier had never wearied in ill-doing; he kept his zest to the last. He skipped to another volume to follow the pursuit of Henriette, of "C.V.," of Thérèse. The perusal amused him, and he got back something of his cynical indifference.It was after eleven o'clock when he laid down the book and rose to look, abstractedly, out of the office window. He longed for an adventure that should reinstate him as his old careless self.He left his rooms, went up to Powell Street and finally wandered into the noisy gaiety of the Techau Tavern. The place was running full with after-theater gatherings, and he had hard work to find a table. All about him was a confusion of excited talk, the clatter of dishes, the riotous music of an insistent orchestra. Parties were entering all the while, beckoned to places by the head waiter. The place was garish with lights and mirrors.Granthope had sat there ten minutes or so, sipping his glass, noticing, here and there, clients whom he had served, when, between the heads of two women, far across the room, he recognized Mrs. Page. It was not long before she saw him, caught his eye, and signaled with vivacity. The diversion was agreeable; he rose and went over. A glance at her table showed him a company most of whose members he had met before, but with whom, only a few months since, he would have counted it a social success to be considered intimate. While not being quite of the elect, they held the key of admission to many high places in virtue of their wit and ingenious powers to please. They were such as insured amusement. Granthope himself was this evening desirous of being amused.With Mrs. Page was Frankie Dean, the irrepressible, voluble, sarcastic, a devil in her black, snapping eyes, as cold-blooded as a snake. It was she who had so nearly embarrassed him at the Chinese supper at the Maxwells'. She eyed him now, dark, feline, whimsically watching her chance to make sport of him. With them was a young girl from Santa Rosa, newly come to San Francisco, an alien in such a company. She was slight and dewy, vivid with sudden color, with soft, fervent eyes that had not yet learned to face such audacity as her companions practised. Keith and Fernigan were there, also, like a vaudeville team, rollicking with fun, playing into each other's hands, charging the company with abandon. Lastly, "Sully" Maxwell sat, silent, happy, indulgent, with his pockets filled with twenty dollar gold-pieces, which he got rid of at every opportunity. He spoke about once every fifteen minutes, and then usually to the waiter. "A good spender" was Sully—that quality and his unfailing good-nature carried him into the gayest circles and kept him there unnoticed, until the bills were to be paid.To Granthope, tired with his day's work, in conflict with himself, morbidly self-conscious, the scene was stimulating. There was an atmosphere of inconsequent mirth in the group, which dissolved his mood immediately. The women, smartly dressed, bubbling with spirit, quick with repartee—Keith and Fernigan, their sparkling dialogue interrupted, waiting for another auditor—even Sully, prosperous, good-natured, hospitably making him welcome—the group attracted him, rejuvenated him, enveloped him with their frivolity. The party was in the first effervescence of its enthusiasm. Mrs. Page was at her sprightly best, impellent, a gorgeous animal. Even Frankie Dean, whom he did not like, was temptingly piquant and brisk. The little girl had a novelty and virginal charm. He had been out of his element all day. Here, he could be himself. He could take things easily and jocosely, and have no thought of consequences. His mood disappeared like a shattered soap-bubble, and he was caught into their jubilant atmosphere.He was introduced to the girl from Santa Rosa, who looked up at him timidly but with evident curiosity, as at a celebrity, and sat down between her and Mrs. Page. Sully Maxwell took advantage of the new arrival to order another round of drinks—club sandwiches, golden bucks—till he was stopped by Frankie Dean. Keith and Fernigan recommenced their wit. Mrs. Page looked at him with all kinds of messages in her eyes, as if she were quite sure that he could interpret them. The girl from Santa Rosa said nothing, but, from time to time, gave him a shy, curious glance from her big brown eyes. Granthope's spirits rose steadily, but his excitement had in it something hectic. In a sudden pause he seemed to remember that he had been speaking rather too loudly.After the party had refused, unanimously, further refreshment, Sully proposed that they should all drive out to the Cliff House, and they left the restaurant forthwith to set out on this absurd expedition. It was already long past midnight; the adventure was a characteristic San Francisco pastime for the giddier spirits of the town.Sully was for hiring two hacks; Mrs. Page, giggling, vetoed the proposition, and Frankie Dean supported her. Decidedly that would be commonplace; why break up the party? The girl from Santa Rosa looked alarmed at the prospect. Granthope smiled at her ingenuousness, and liked her for it. The result of the sidewalk discussion was that Sully obligingly mounted beside the driver, and the six others squeezed into the carriage, the door banged, and they proceeded on their hilarious way toward the "Panhandle" of the Park. On the rear seat Granthope sat with Mrs. Page and Frankie Dean on either hand, protesting that they were perfectly comfortable. Opposite him the girl from Santa Rosa leaned forward on the edge of the cushion, shrinking away from the two men beside her.Mrs. Page made an ineffectual search in the dark for Granthope's hand. Not finding it, she began to sing, under her breath:"It was not like this in the olden time,It was not like this, at all!"and Frankie Dean, quick-witted enough to understand the situation, remarked, "Oh, Mr. Granthope doesn't read palms free, Violet; you ought to know that!" She darted a look at him.So it went on frothily, with chattering, laughter, snatches of song, jests and stories, punctuated occasionally by the rapping of Sully's cane on the window of the carriage, as he leaned over in a jovial attempt to participate in the fun. Granthope, for a while, led the spirit of gaiety that prevailed, told a story or two, "jollied" Mrs. Page, laughed at Keith's inconsequence, accepted Frankie Dean's challenges. But the frank, bewildered eyes of the little girl from Santa Rosa, fixed upon him, disconcerted him more than once.The carriage soon entered Golden Gate Park. The night was warm and still, the dusk pervaded with perfumes. Under the slope of Strawberry Hill Maxwell stopped the carriage and ordered them all out to invade the shadowy stillness with revelry. The night air was that of belated summer, full of a languor that comes seldom to San Francisco which has neither real summer nor real winter, and the wildness of the place, remote, unvisited, was exhilarating. A mock minuet was started, races run, even trees climbed by Frankie Dean the audacious, with shrieks and laughter, all childishly with the sheer joy of living. Granthope and the girl from Santa Rosa, after watching the sport with amusement for a while, left the rest and walked on past a turn of the road, to stand there, discussing the stars, while the cries of the two women came softened along the sluggish breeze. The girl took off her hat and breathed deeply of the night air. They walked on farther through the gloom, till only an occasional faint shout reached them from the party. Granthope put the girl at her ease, pointed out the planets and the constellations and explained the principles of ancient astrology. They had begun to forget the rest when they were overtaken and captured again and the crowded carriage took its way towards the sea.Upon a high ledge of rock jutting out into the Pacific, at the very entrance to the Bay of San Francisco, stands the Cliff House, a white, wooden, many-windowed monstrosity with glazed verandas, cupolas, frivolous dormers, cheap, garish, bulky, gay, seemingly almost toppling into the water. Here come not only such innocently holidaying folk as Fancy Gray and Gay P. Summer, not only jaded tourists and the Sunday-outing citizens who lie upon the warm beach below and doze away a morning in the sun and wind. It was patronized of old by the buggy-riding fraternity, the smokers, the spenders, with their lights-o'-love, as the most popular of road-houses. The cable-cars and the two "dummy" railroad lines have changed its character somewhat, but it is still a show-place of the town. There is good eating, a gorgeous view of the Pacific, and the sea-lions on the rocks below.Here Mrs. Page's party alighted, near three o'clock in the morning. The bar only was open, its white-frocked attendant sleeping behind the counter. This they entered, yawning from their ride. The barkeeper was awakened, peremptorily, and was ordered to prepare what he had for refreshment. With hot beans from the heater, tamales, potato salad, cold cuts, crackers and cheese, he laid a table in a small dining-room. Sully Maxwell undertook all the arrangements, fraternized with the barkeeper, selected beverages, not forgetting ginger ale for the girl from Santa Rosa. Mrs. Page and Frankie Dean, somewhat disheveled, retired, to appear trig and trim and glossy in the gaslight, ready for more gaiety. Granthope, meanwhile, had wandered out upon the veranda to watch the surf dashing on the rocks, to note the yellow gleam from the Point Bonita light, and smell the salt air; to get his courage up, in short, for another round of animation. The instant he returned Mrs. Page went at him."Now, Frank," she said, "it won't do to sulk or to flirt with Santa Rosa. What's got into you, anyway? You must positively do something to amuse us.""Office hours from ten till four," Keith murmured audibly.Frankie Dean turned on him: "They never let you out of your cage at all!"Fernigan, thereat, began an absurd pantomime that half terrified the girl from Santa Rosa. He pretended to be a monkey behind the bars of a cage, eating peanuts—and worse. It was shockingly funny. The company roared, all but Granthope. He was at the point of impatience, but replied with what sounded like ennui:"I'm a bit stale, Violet; you'll have to excuse me if I'm stupid to-night. I came to be entertained."Frankie Dean looked at him mischievously. "Never mind, Mr. Granthope, she'll come back."It was obviously no more than a cant phrase, intended for a witticism. Mrs. Page, however, took it up with mock seriousness."Who's 'she', now?I'mback in the chorus again! Therewasa time, Frank—" Her voice was sentimental; she tilted her head and looked at him, under half-closed eyelids, across the table."I say, Granthope, you ought to publish an illustrated catalogue of 'em. There's nothing doing for amateurs, nowadays. When women pay five dollars to have their hands held what chance is there for us?" This from Keith, with burlesque emphasis.Mrs. Page would not be diverted. "No, but really, Frank; whoisshe? I've quite lost track of your conquests.""Oh, you know I'm wedded to my art," he said lightly."Yes, and it's the art of making love, isn't it?""'No further seek his merits to disclose,'" said Keith, and Fernigan added, "'Nor draw his frailties from their dread abode.'"The girl from Santa Rosa looked suddenly bursting with intelligence, recognizing the quotation. She started to finish it, then stopped; her lips moved silently. Granthope smiled.Frankie Dean had been watching her chance for another at his expense. Now she asked, with apparent frankness: "Mr. Granthope, can you tell character by the lines on the soles of the feet?""Science of Solistry," murmured Keith to the Santa Rosa girl."Let's try it!" Mrs. Page exclaimed. "I will, for one! Do you know my second toe's longer than my great toe? I'm awfully proud of it. I can prove it, too!""Go on!" Frankie Dean dared her.The girl from Santa Rosa stared, her lips apart. "Why, every one's is, aren't they?""No such thing!" Mrs. Page stopped and almost blushed. A chorus of laughter."Oh, there are a good many better ways of telling character than that," said Granthope."Yes," Keith put in. "Indiscreet remarks, for instance."Mrs. Page bit her lip and shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, if I were going in for indiscreet remarks I might make a few aboutyou!"Here Sully interposed. "Isn't this conversation getting rather personal? I move we discard all these low cards. This is no woman's club. The quiet life for mine."The hint was taken by Keith, who began an English music-hall song, to the effect that "John was a nice good 'usband, 'e never cared to roam, 'e only wanted a quiet life, 'e only wanted a quiet wife; there 'e would sit by the fireside, such a chilly man was John—" where he was joined in the chorus by Fernigan—"Oh, I 'opes and trusts there's a nice 'ot fire, where my old man's gone!" Maxwell pounded in time upon the table. The girl from Santa Rosa hazarded a laugh.Granthope looked on listlessly, ever more detached and introspective. This was what he had been used to, since he could remember, but now, in the stuffy little room, with its ghastly yellow gas-light, the smell of eatables and wine, the pallor of the women's faces, the flush of Maxwell's, the desperate frivolity, the artificiality of it all bored him. He wondered, whimsically, why he had ever looked forward to being the companion of such a society as this. It was all harmless enough, unconventional as it was, but he tasted the ashes in his mouth. Perhaps, after all, he was only not in the mood for it. He tried to smile again.Fernigan seized a small Turkish rug from the floor and hung it in front of him, like a chasuble. Standing before the company he intoned a sacrilegious parody, like everything he did, funny, like everything he did, atrocious:"O, sanctissimus nabisco in colorado maduro domino te deum, e pluribus unum vice versa et circus hippocriticam, mephisto apollinaris nux vomica dolores intimidad mores; O rara avis per diem cum magnum vino et sappho modus vivendi felicitas," to the droned "A—men."Keith then enlivened the company with what quaint parlor tricks he knew, or dared, from making of a napkin a ballet dancer pirouetting upon one toe, to limericks that were suppressed by Sully Maxwell, Mrs. Page laughed prodigiously, showing all her teeth, staring with her great eyes, vivid in her every expression, flamboyant, sleek and glossy, abounding in temperament. Frankie Dean smiled maliciously and plied the performers with her acrid wit. The girl from Santa Rosa listened, her cheeks burning.At six they went outside for fresh air and promenaded the glazed veranda until the sun rose. In front of them was the broad Pacific, stretching out to the Farralones, even to Japan. To the north, across the bar, yellowed with alluvium from the San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers, a mountainous coast stretched to far, misty Bolinas. Southward ran the broad, wide beach exposed by the ebb tide. It was damp and cool; the last spasm of summer had given way to the brisk, stimulating weather that was San Francisco's usual habit. Granthope buttoned his light overcoat tightly over his rumpled evening dress and walked with the girl from Santa Rosa, enjoying the scene quietly, speaking in monosyllables. The others had a new burst of effervescence, still more desperate than ever; their hilarity was indefatigable. Keith walked along the tops of the tables, leading Mrs. Page. Frankie Dean and Fernigan two-stepped the length and breadth of the wide platform, joking incessantly.A walk up the beach was then suggested, and, after a preliminary furbishing of faces and hair, they went down the steep rocky road to the wide strand, and proceeded along the shore.Granthope, falling behind, saw that the girl from Santa Rosa alone had waited for him. She gazed at him steadily with grave eyes."Well," he said kindly, "what d'you think of San Francisco?"She looked down at the sand and drew a circle with her toe before she answered."It's pretty gay here, isn't it?""Oh, well, if you call this sort of thing gay!"The girl looked immensely relieved, gave him a quick, searching glance, and said shyly: "Do you know, Mr. Granthope, I have an idea that you didn't enjoy it any more than I did!"He smiled at her, then silently grasped her hand. She blushed and turned away."I thought it was going to be great fun," she said, as they walked on. "I never was up all night before. It's awfully exciting. But people do look awful in the morning, don't they?"She herself was like a blossom wet with dew, but Granthope knew what she meant, well enough. He had watched the lines come into Mrs. Page's face and her mouth droop at the corners; he had noticed the glitter fade from Frankie Dean's black eyes, and her lids grow heavy."You ought never to have come," he said. "I think you'd better go home and get to bed. Suppose we leave them and walk across to the almshouse and take the Haight Street cars?""Oh, d'you think they'd mind, if we did?""They'd never notice that we were gone, I'm sure.""I'm afraid you'll find me awfully stupid. Miss Dean is very witty, isn't she?""I'd rather be stupid.""You're sure I won't bore you?""I don't feel much like talking, myself. I have plenty to think about. Suppose we don't say anything, unless we have something to say.""Oh, I didn't know you could do that—in San Francisco!"He laughed sincerely for the first time that night.As they came to the place where the beach road turned off for Ingleside, the rest of the party was some distance ahead. They were sitting upon some rocks, and, as Granthope looked, he saw Mrs. Page rise, lift her skirts and walk barefooted across the sands, down to the water's edge. She turned and waved her hand to him. He took off his hat to her and pointed inland in reply. Then he climbed the low sand-hills with his companion and struck off southward, along the road. The girl had colored again.Her confidence in him was soothing. She was so serious and innocent, so quick with a country girl's delicate observation of nature, that he fell into a more placid state of mind. She became more friendly all the while, till, despite her confession of shyness, she fairly prattled. He let her run on, scarcely listening, busy with his own thoughts. And so, up the long road to the almshouse, resting in the pale sunshine occasionally, through the Park to the end of the Haight Street cable-line they walked, and talked ingenuously.She lived in "The Mission," and there, having nothing better to do, he escorted her, and at last, in that jumble of wooden buildings so multitudinously prosaic, between the Twin Peaks and the Old Mission, he left her. She bade him good-by apparently with regret. Widely different as they were in mind and temperament, they had, for their hour, come closely together. Now they were to recede, never again, perhaps, to meet.He walked in town along Valencia Street, through that curious "hot belt" which defies the town's normal state of weather, turned up Van Ness Avenue, still too busy with his reflections to shut himself up in his studio. It was Sunday morning—he had almost forgotten the day—and he turned up his collar, to conceal what he could of his evening attire and its wilted, rumpled linen, somewhat uncomfortable in the presence of the church-going throngs which pervaded the avenue.He had reached the top of the long slope leading to the Black Point military reservation, and was pausing upon the corner of Lombard Street, when, looking up the hill, he saw Clytie Payson coming down the steep, irregular pathway that did service for a sidewalk. He stepped behind a lamp-post and watched her, uncertain whether or not to let her see him.She came tripping down, picking her way along the cleated double plank, too intent upon her footsteps to look far ahead. The sight of her made him a little trepid with excitement; it focused his dissatisfaction with himself. He knew, now, what had disturbed him. It was the thought of her. She had forced him to look at himself from a new point of view, with a new, critical vision. He longed for her approval. Her gentle coercion was drawing him into new channels of life, and he felt a sudden need for her help. He was losing his whilom comrades, his old familiar associations repelled him. He had nothing to sustain him now, but the thought of her friendship.But, in his present state, he had not the courage to address her. As a child plays with circumstances and makes his own omens, he left the decision to chance. If she turned and saw him, he would greet her and throw himself on her grace. If not, he would pass on without speaking, much as he longed to speak.She came down to the corner diagonally opposite and paused for a moment, looking off at the mountains and the waters of the Golden Gate. He saw her make a sudden movement, as if waking from her abstraction, then she walked over in his direction. He came out from his cover and went to meet her."Good morning, Mr. Granthope!" She was smiling, holding out her hand. "I thought I recognized you! Something told me to stop a moment, and wait. Then suddenly I saw you. You see, you can't escape me!"He was visibly embarrassed, conscious of his significantly unkempt appearance. She, however, did not show that she noticed it."How is your ankle?" was her first inquiry. He assured her that it had given him no trouble for a week, and he expressed his thanks to her for her help."I've been hoping I might see you," she said, "to apologize for the reception you received the last time you called. I can't tell you how unhappy it made me, nor how I regret it.""Mayn't I see you a while now?" He felt at such a disadvantage in his present condition that it was embarrassing to be with her, and yet he longed for another hour of companionship."Let's walk down to the Point," she said. "I can get in the reservation, and it will be beautiful."As they walked down across the empty space at the foot of the avenue and along the board-walk over the sand, she talked inconsequently of the day and the scene, evidently attempting to put him at his ease. The little girl from Santa Rosa had given him a passive comfort. Clytie's companionship was an active and inspiring joy. His depression ceased; a sane, wholesome content filled him. He watched her graceful, leopard-like swing and the evidences of vitality that impelled her movements.
CHAPTER IX
COMING ON
By artful questions, and apparently innocent remarks to lure his confidence, by a little guess-work, more observation, and a profound knowledge of the frailties of human nature, Madam Spoll had plied Oliver Payson to good advantage.
She got a fact here, a suggestion there, and, one at a time, she arranged these items in order, and with them wove a psychological web strong enough to work upon. It was partly hypothetical, partly proved, but, slender and shadowy as it was, upon it was portrayed a faint image of her victim—a pattern sufficient for her use. Every new piece of information was deftly used to strengthen the fabric, until at last it was serviceable as a working theory of his life and could be used to astonish and interest him. Of this whole process he was, of course, unaware, so cleverly disguised was her method, so skilful was her tact. She never frightened her quarry, never permitted him to suspect her. Her errors she frankly acknowledged and set down to the ignorance of her guides. She had, indeed, many holes by which she could escape—set formulæ for covering her petty failures.
After two or three interviews, she had filled up almost all the weak spots in her web, and was prepared to encompass her victim by wiles with which to bleed him.
Mr. Payson had gone away from his first interview limping slightly more than usual, and had talked considerably about his ailment to his daughter. Clytie, not knowing what had increased his hypochondria, was inclined to laugh at his fears and complaints. He found a more sympathetic listener in Blanchard Cayley, who took him quite seriously and discoursed for an hour in Payson's office upon the possibilities of internal disorders, such as the medium had mentioned.
The result was a visit to Doctor Masterson.
The healer's quarters were two flights up in one of the many gloomy buildings on Market Street, half lodging-rooms, half offices, inhabited by chiropodists, cheap tailors, "painless" dentists and such riffraff. The stair was steep and the halls were narrow. The doctor's place was filled with a sad half-light that made the rows of bottles on the shelves, the skull in the corner and the stuffed owl seem even more mysterious. The room was dusty and ill-kept; the floor was covered with cold linoleum.
The magnetic healer's shrewd eyes glistened and shifted behind his spectacles; the horizontal wrinkles in his forehead, under his bald pate, drew gloomily together as Mr. Payson poured out the story of his trouble. For a time the doctor said nothing. Then he took a vial full of yellow liquid from his table, carried it to the window, held it to the light, examined it solemnly and put it back. He sat down again and looked Mr. Payson over. Then he tilted back in his chair, stuck a pair of dirty thumbs in the armholes of his plaid waistcoat, and said, "H'm!" Finally, his thin lips parted in a grisly smile showing his blackened teeth.
His victim watched, anxiously waiting, with his two hands on the head of his cane. The gloom appeared to affect his spirits; he seemed ready to expect the worst.
Doctor Masterson took off his spectacles and wiped them on a yellow silk handkerchief. "It looks pretty serious to me," he said, "but I calculate I can fix you up. It'll cost some money, though. Ye see, it's this way: I'm controlled by an Indian medicine-man named Hasandoka and his band o' sperits. Now, in order to bring this here psychic force to bear on your case, it's bound to take considerable o' my time and their time, and I'll have to go to work and neglect my reg'lar patients. It takes it out o' me, and I can't do but just so much or I peter out. I'll go into a trance and see what Hasandoka has to say, and then you'll be in a condition to know what to decide. O' course, you understand, I ain't no doctor and don't claim to be, but I got control of a powerful psychic force that guides me in my treatment, and I never knew it to fail yet. If my band o' sperits can't help you, nobody can, and you better go to work and make your will right away. See?"
Mr. Payson saw the argument and manifested a desire to proceed with the investigation.
The doctor loosened his celluloid collar and closed his eyes. In a minute or two he appeared to fall asleep, breathing heavily.
Then, through him, the great Hasandoka spoke, in the guttural dialect such as is supposed to be affected by the American Indian, using flowery metaphors punctuated by grunts.
The tenor of his communication was that Mr. Payson was undoubtedly afflicted with something which was termed a "complication." He went into fearsome prophecies as to its probable progress downward to the feet, upward to the brain and forward to the kidney, with minor excursions to the liver and lights. The patient's spine was preparing itself for paralysis; it seemed that death was imminent at any moment. Hasandoka expressed his willingness to accept the case, however, and promised to effect a radical cure in a month at most, if treatment were begun immediately, before it was too late. The cure would be accomplished by massage, used in connection with a potent herb, known only to the primitive Indian tribes. After this message Hasandoka squirmed out of the medium's body and the soul of Doctor Masterson squirmed in again. There were the customary spasmodic gestures of awakening before he opened his eyes.
"Well, what did he tell you?" he asked.
Mr. Payson repeated the communication in a dispirited tone.
"Bad as that, is it?" said Masterson. "One foot in the grave, so to speak. Well, I tell you what I'll do. I'm interested in your case, for if I can go to work and cure you it'll be more or less of a feather in my cap. See here; I won't charge you but fifty dollars a week till you're cured, and if you ain't a well man in thirty days, I'll hand your money back. That's a fair business proposition, ain't it? I guarantee to put all my time on your case."
Mr. Payson gratefully accepted the terms. A meeting for a treatment was appointed for the next day.
This time Doctor Masterson was prepared for his victim.
[image]Doctor Masterson was prepared for his victim
[image]
[image]
Doctor Masterson was prepared for his victim
"I've been in direct communication with Hasandoka," he said, "and I'm posted on your case now, and have full directions what to do. The first thing is a good course of massage. Now, which would you prefer to have, a man or a woman? I got a girl I sometimes employ who's pretty slick at massage. She's good and strong and willing and as pretty as a peach, if I do say it—she's got a figger like a waxwork—I think p'raps Flora would help you more'n any one—"
Mr. Payson shook his head coldly, saying that he preferred a man.
"Oh, o' course," Doctor Masterson said apologetically, shrugging his shoulders, "if you don't want her I guess I better go to work and do the rubbing myself, if you'd be better satisfied."
The Indian herb prescribed by Hasandoka was, it appeared, a rare, secret and expensive drug. The doctor's price was ten dollars a bottle, in addition to his weekly charge for treatment. He presented Mr. Payson with a bottle of dark brown fluid of abominable odor.
The treatment went on thrice a week, the massage being alternated with trances in which the doctor, under the cogent spell of the medicine man, uttered many strange things. The whole effect of this was to reassure Mr. Payson upon the fact that powerful influences were at work for his especial benefit.
Whether induced by Hasandoka's aid or by Doctor Masterson's suggestion, an improvement in the patient's mind, at least, did come. He was met, the following week, by the magnetic healer in his rooms with a congratulatory smile. Doctor Masterson inaugurated the second stage of his campaign.
"Say, you certainly are looking better, ain't you? How's the pain, disappearing, eh? I thought we could bring you around. Yesterday I was in a trance four hours on your case and it took the life out o' me something terrible. I knew then that I was drawing the disease out o' you. You just go to work and walk acrost the room, and see if you ain't improved. We got you started now, and all we got to do is to keep it up till you're absolutely well."
Blanchard Cayley also seemed interested when Mr. Payson told him of the improvement.
"You certainly are growing younger every day," said Cayley. "I don't know how you manage it at your age, in this vile weather, too, but I notice you've got more color and more spring in you. You're a wonder!"
One afternoon, during the third week of his treatment, as Mr. Payson was seated in his own office, the door opened and a chubby, roly-poly figure of a woman, with soft brown eyes and hair, came in timidly and looked about, seemingly perplexed and embarrassed. She walked up to his desk.
"I beg your pardon," she said, "but could you tell me where Mr. Bigelow's office is, in this building? I thought it was on this floor, but I can't find his name on any door."
He replied, scarcely glancing at her: "Down at the end of the corridor, on the left."
She stood watching him for a moment as he continued his writing, and then ventured to say:
"I beg your pardon, sir, but ain't you the gentleman that come to me some time ago to have your life read?"
He looked up now and recognized her as the one who had initiated him into the occult world, through the medium of the "Egyptian egg."
"Why, yes." He smiled benevolently. "You're Miss Ellis, aren't you?"
She seemed pleased. "Yes," she answered; "I hope you don't mind my reminding you of it, but I took an interest in your case more than usual, on account of your reading being so different, and I was surprised to see you here. You're looking much better than you did then. When you come into my place, I said to myself, 'There's a man that'll pass out pretty soon if he don't take care of himself.' You seemed so miserable. Why, I wouldn't know you now, you're so much improved. You must have gained flesh, too. Well, I congratulate you. If you ever want another reading, come around—here's my card, but perhaps you've tried Madam Spoll since. She's the best in the business. I go to her myself sometimes."
He walked to the door with her and bowed her out politely.
A week after he made another visit to Madam Spoll. The medium was gracious and congratulatory.
"Why, you look like a new man, that's a fact!" she said. "Between you and me, I never really expected that you could recover, but I knew if anybody could help you it would be Masterson. I suppose he come pretty high, didn't he? Two hundred! For the land sake! I'm sorry you had to fall into the hands of that shark, but, after all, it's cheaper than being dead, ain't it? A desperate disease requires a desperate remedy, they say. I wouldn't take you for more than forty years old now, in spite of your gray hairs.
"Now," she continued, "you've had experience and you're in a position to know whether there's any truth in spiritualism or not. No matter what anybody tells you about fakes or tricks and all that nonsense—I don't say some so-called mediums ain't collusions—you've demonstrated the truth of it for yourself, and you've found out that we can do what we say. You can afford to laugh at the skeptics and these smart-Alecs who pretend to know it all. What we claim can be proved and you've proved it. Lord, I'd like to know where you'd be now if you hadn't. I've always said: 'Investigate it for yourself, and if you don't get satisfaction, leave it alone for them that do. Go at it in a frank and honest spirit and try to find out the truth, and you'll generally come out convinced.' I don't believe in no underhanded ways of going to work at it neither. If you was going to study up Christian Science, or Mo-homedism, we'll say, you wouldn't be trying to deceive them and giving false names and all, and why should you when you want to find out about the spirit world? What you want to do is to depend upon the character of the information you get, to test the truth of what we claim. You treat us square and we'll treat you square. We ain't infalliable, but we can help. Whatever is to be had from the spirit plane we can generally get it for you."
"I'm very much interested," Mr. Payson said. "There does seem to be something in it, and I want to get to the bottom of it. There are several things I'd like to get help on, too."
"Do you know, I knew they was something worrying you," she replied, smiling placidly. She laid her fingers to her silken thorax. "I felt your magnetism right here when you came in, and I got a feeling of unpleasantness or worry. It ain't about a little thing either; it's an important matter, now, ain't it?"
Mr. Payson, affected by her sympathy, admitted that it was. Under his shaggy eyebrows, his cold eyes watched her anxiously, as if gazing at one who might wrest secrets from him. His belief in her had increased with every sitting, so that now the old man, gray and bald, in his judicial frock-coat, lost something of his influential manner and became more like a child before his teacher, swayed by every word that fell from her lips.
Her manner was half patronizing, half domineering. "What did I tell you? You feel as if, well, you don't quite knowwhatto do, and you're saying to yourself all the time, 'Now, whatshallI do?' That's just the condition I get."
"Do you think you could help me?"
"I don't know; I'll try. I ain't feeling very receptive to spirit influence to-day; I guess I overeat myself some; but then, again, I might be very successful; there's no telling. You just let me hold your hands a few minutes and I can see right off whether conditions are favorable or not."
He did so. Suddenly she turned her head to one side and spoke as if to an invisible person beside her.
"Oh, she's here, is she? What is it? She says she can't find him? Well, what about him? What? Shall I tell him that?"
She opened her eyes and drew a long breath.
"Luella is here and she says to tell you that Felicia wants to give you a message. Do you understand who I mean?"
"Yes, I know. She's the lady you spoke to me about before, with the white hair."
"Would her name be Felicia Grant?"
He assented timidly, as if fearing to acknowledge it.
"Well, Felicia says she has found the child—child, the one that was lost. Do you understand?"
"Yes, yes. Go on!"
"Really, I don't like to tell you this, Mr. Payson—"
"Tell anything."
Madam Spoll dropped her voice, as if fearful of being overheard. "You was in love with her.
"Yes." He eyed her glassily.
"And you was the father of the child?"
He nodded, still staring.
Madam Spoll smiled complacently. "Well, Felicia says she has found the boy, and she's going to bring him to you as soon as conditions are favorable. She can't do it yet; the time ain't come for it. That's all I can get from her. But Luella says you're worried about a book, and she wants to help you."
"How can she help?"
"Wait a minute." Madam Spoll smoothed her forehead with both hands for a while, then went on: "It seems that she can't work through me so well, it being what you might call a business affair, and she recommends that you try some one else, while I'll try to get the boy. I think a physical medium could help you more. There's Professor Vixley; he's something wonderful in a business way. I confess I can't comprehend it. Are you selling books?"
"Not exactly."
"Well, whatever it is, Vixley's the one to go to. He'll do well by you and you can trust him. I'll just write down his address; you go to see him and tell him I sent you, and I guarantee he'll give satisfaction. About the child, now, we'll have to wait. I shouldn't wonder if you could be developed so you could handle the thing alone. You've got strong mediumistic powers, only they're what you might call asleep and dormant. If you could come to me oftener we might be able to produce phenomena, for you're sensitive, only you don't know how to put your powers to the right use. You could join a circle, I suppose, but the quickest way is to have sittings with me, private."
The old man took off his spectacles and wiped off a mist. His hand was trembling. "I might want to try it later," he said at last, "but I'm not quite ready to, yet—I want to think it over. If you really think that this Vixley can help about the book, I'll look him up first. I want it to be a success, and I am a bit worried about it."
When he reached home he went into the living-room, to find Blanchard Cayley sitting there at ease, bland, suave and nonchalant. Clytie had not yet returned for dinner. Mr. Payson shook his hand cordially.
"I'm glad to see you, Blanchard. Been looking over that last chapter of mine? What do you think of it?"
"I haven't had time to read it yet. I've been expecting Cly home any minute."
"How are you getting on with her? Is she still skittish?"
"Oh, it'll come out all right, I expect," the young man said carelessly.
"I hope so! She's a good girl. I know she'll see it my way in the end—you just hold on and be nice to her. You know I'm on your side. I'd give a good deal to see Cly married to a good man like you. Strange, she doesn't seem to take any interest in my work at all. If I didn't have you to talk to, I don't know what I'd do. Suppose I read you that last chapter while we're waiting for her. I'd like to get your criticism of it. That trade dollar material has helped me immensely."
For half an hour, while Mr. Payson read the driest of dry manuscripts, Blanchard Cayley yawned behind his hand or nodded wisely, with an approving word or two. The old man had pushed up his spectacles over his forehead and held the sheets close to his eyes. He read in a mellow, deep voice, but it was the voice of a pedant.
"There," he said at last, stacking up the scattered papers. "I guess that will open their eyes, won't it?"
"It's great; that book will make a sensation."
"Well, it isn't finished yet, and what's to come will be better than what I've done. I'm on the track of something that may help it a good deal."
"What's that?" said Cayley perfunctorily.
"See here," Mr. Payson drew his chair nearer and shook his pencil at the young man. "I've had some wonderful experiences lately. You may not believe it, but I tell you there's something in this spiritualistic business. I've been investigating it for a month now all alone, and I'm thoroughly convinced that these mediums do have some sort of power that we don't understand."
"Really?" Cayley was beginning to be interested. "I knew you had always been an agnostic, but I had no idea that you had gone into this sort of thing. Have you struck anything interesting?"
"I certainly have. I went into it in a scientific spirit, as a skeptic, pure and simple, but I've received some wonderful tests. Why, they told me my name the very first thing and a lot about my life that they had no possible way of finding out. The trouble is, they know too much."
Cayley laughed. "Found out about your wild oats, I suppose?"
Mr. Payson frowned at this frivolity. "There are things they've told me that no one living could possibly know. Whether it's done through spirits or not, it's mysterious business. You ought to go to a séance and see what they can do."
"I'd hate to have them tell my past," Cayley said jocosely, "but I don't take much stock in them. They're a gang of fakirs."
"They're pretty sharp, if they are. I haven't lived fifty years in the West to be taken in as easily as that. I ought to know something about men by this time. Why, see here! You know what trouble I had with my leg? It was something pretty serious. Well, look at me now. You've noticed the change yourself. I went to a medium and now I'm completely cured. That's enough to give any one confidence, isn't it? It's genuine evidence."
Cayley agreed with a solemn nod. "But what about the book?"
"Why, if they can influence the right forces so that it'll be a success, why shouldn't I give them a trial? Look at hypnotism! Look at wireless telegraphy! For that matter, look at the telephone! Fifty years ago no one would believe that such things were possible. It may be the same with this power, whatever it is, spirits or not. I'm an old man, but I keep up with the times. I'm not going to set myself up for an authority and say, because a thing hasn't seemed probable to me, that I know all about the mysterious forces of nature. I've come to believe that there are powers inherent in us that may be developed successfully."
The incipient smile, the attitude of bantering protest had faded from Cayley's face, as the old man spoke. He listened sedately. Oliver Payson was a rich man. He had an attractive, marriageable daughter. Blanchard Cayley was poor, single and without prospects.
"Of course, there's much we don't yet understand," he said gravely. "One hears all sorts of tales—there must be some foundation to them."
"That's so—why, just look at Cly! She's had queer things happen to her ever since she was a child."
"Yes, I suppose that's why she's so interested in this palmist person; though I confess I don't take much stock in him."
"What do you mean?" Mr. Payson demanded.
"Why, I thought of course you knew. Granthope, the palmist—you know, the fellow everybody's taking up now—he has been here, hasn't he? I had an idea that Cly had taken rather a fancy to him."
"He was here?" Mr. Payson seemed much surprised.
"Why, I wouldn't have spoken of it for the world if I had known you didn't know—but I've seen her with him several times, and I thought, of course—" Cayley threw it out apologetically in apparent confusion at his indiscretion.
Mr. Payson stared. "Granthope, did you say? I believe I have heard of him. Cly and a common palmist? I can't believe it. What can she want of a charlatan like that?"
"I was sorry to see it myself," Cayley admitted, "but I suppose she knows what she's doing. The man's notorious enough. Only, she ought to be careful."
"I won't have it!" Mr. Payson began to storm. "Reading palms for a lot of silly women is a very different thing from spiritualism. I don't mind her going to see him once for the curiosity of the thing, but I won't have him in the house. I'll put a stop to that in a hurry. You say you've seen them together? Where?"
"Oh, I think it was probably an accidental meeting," he said. "I wish you wouldn't say anything about it, Mr. Payson. Very likely it doesn't mean anything at all. Tell me about this fellow you spoke of going to. Do you think he's all right?"
"I'll soon find out if he isn't—trust me!" Mr. Payson wagged his head wisely. "His name is Professor Vixley, and I've heard he's a very remarkable man. I'm going to see him next week and see what he can do for me. I'm not one to be fooled by any claptrap; I intend to sift this thing to the bottom."
"How do you intend to go about it?" Cayley asked. "I'll tell you what I'd do. I'd ask him to answer a few definite questions. If he can do that, it'll be a pretty good test, even if it is only thought-reading."
"If there's anything in thought transference there may be something in spiritualism, too. One's as unexplainable as the other. See here! Suppose I ask him something that I don't know the answer to myself—wouldn't that prove it is not telepathy?"
"I should say so; but what could you ask?"
Mr. Payson had arisen, and was walking up and down the room with his hands behind his back. He stopped to deliberate beside the bookcase, then he took down a volume at random. "Suppose I ask him what the first word is on page one hundred of this book."
He looked over at Cayley, then down at the title of the book.
"The Astrology of the Old Testament—queer I should put my hand on that! I'll try it. I won't look at the page at all." He put the book back on the shelf. "Can't you suggest something? Suppose you give me a question that you know the answer of and I don't."
Blanchard Cayley sought for an idea, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. Then he said slowly: "I used to know a girl once in Sacramento who lived next door to me. Try Vixley on her name, why don't you?"
"Good! I'll do it. Now one more."
"You might ask him the number of your watch."
"That's a good idea; then I can corroborate that on the spot."
"You'd better let me see if there's one there, though," Cayley suggested. "I believe sometimes they are not numbered. Just let me look."
Mr. Payson took out his watch and handed it to the young man, who opened the back cover and inspected the works. He noted the number, took a second glance at it and then snapped the cover shut. "All right, if he can tell that number, he's clever." He handed it back to Mr. Payson. "When did you say you were going to see him?" he asked.
"Next Tuesday or Wednesday, I expect," was the reply. "I've got to go up to Stockton to-morrow, and I may be gone two or three days attending to some business. By the by, Cayley, I heard rather a queer story last week when I was up there. You're interested in these romantic yarns of California; perhaps you'd like to hear this."
"Certainly, I should. It may do for my collection of Improbabilities."
"Well, I met the cashier of the Savings Bank up there—he's been with the bank nearly thirty years and he told me the story. It seems one noon, about twenty years ago, while he was alone in the bank, a little boy of seven or eight years of age came in, and said he wanted to deposit some money. The cashier asked him how much he had, thinking, of course, that he'd hand out a dollar or two. The boy put a packet wrapped in newspaper on the counter, and by Jove! if there wasn't something over five thousand dollars, in hundred-dollar greenbacks! What do you think of that? The cashier asked the boy where he got so much money, suspecting that it must have been stolen. The boy wouldn't tell him. The cashier started round the counter to hold the boy till he could investigate, and, if necessary, hand him over to the police. The little fellow saw him coming, got frightened, and ran out the door, leaving the money on the counter. He has never been heard from since."
"Well, what became of the money, then?"
"Why, it had to be entered as deposited, of course. The boy had written a name—the cashier doesn't know whether it was the boy's own name or not—on the margin of the newspaper, and the account stands in that name, awaiting a claimant."
"What was the name?"
"The cashier wouldn't tell me, naturally. It has been kept a secret. With the compound interest, the money now amounts to something like double the original deposit."
"It's a pity I don't know the name; I might prove an alibi."
"Oh, I forgot—and it really is the point of the whole story. The package was wrapped in a copy ofHarper's Weekly, and the boy, whose hands were probably dirty, had happened to press a perfect thumb-print on the smooth paper. Of course, that would identify him, and if any one could prove he was in Stockton at that time, give the name and show that his thumb was marked like that impression, the bank would have to permit him to draw that account."
"That lets me out," said Cayley, "unless that particular thumb-print happens to show a banded, duplex, spiral whorl."
"What in the world do you mean?" Payson asked.
"Why, you know thumb-prints have all been classified by Gallon, and every possible variation in the form of the nucleal involution and its envelope has been named and arranged."
"I didn't know that," said Payson. "But I did know there were no two thumbs alike. That's the way they identified my partner when he was drowned. He was interested in the subject, having read of the Chinese method, and he happened to have a collection of thumb-prints, including his own, of course, done in India ink. His body was so disfigured and eaten by fishes that he couldn't be recognized until, suspecting it might be he, we proved it by his own marks."
"I didn't know you ever had a partner."
"Oh, that was years ago, soon after Cly was born. His name was Ichabod Riley. That was a queer story, too. His wife was a regular Jezebel, Madge Riley was, and there's no doubt she poisoned her first two husbands. She was arrested and tried for the murder of the second, but the jury was hung, and she wasn't. Ichabod was supposed to have been accidentally drowned off Black Point, but I have good reason to believe that he committed suicide on account of her. He was afraid of being poisoned as well. She is supposed to have killed her own baby, too.
"Well," Mr. Payson added, rising, "I've got to go up-stairs and get ready for dinner. You'll stay, won't you?"
"I'll wait till Cly gets home, at any rate, but I'll not promise to dine."
The old man went up-stairs, leaving Cayley alone beside the bookcase.
When he returned he found Cayley, cool and suave as ever. Clytie was with him, standing proudly erect on the other side of the room, a red, angry spot on either cheek. She held no dreamy, listless pose now; something had evidently fully awakened her, stinging her into an unaccustomed fervor. Her slender white hands were clasped in front of her, her bosom rose and fell. Her lips were tightly closed.
Mr. Payson, near-sighted and egoistic, was oblivious of these stormy signs, and remarked genially: "You're going to stay to dinner, aren't you, Blanchard?"
Blanchard Cayley drawled, "I think not, Mr. Payson; I'll be going on, if you'll excuse me," smiling, "and if Cly will."
"Don't let us keep you if you have another appointment," she said, without looking at him.
He left after a few more words with the old man, who began at last to smell something wrong.
"What's the matter, Cly?" he asked.
She had sat down and was pretending to read. Now she looked up casually:
"Oh, nothing much, father, except that he was impertinent enough to question me about something that didn't concern him."
"H'm!" Mr. Payson took a seat with a grunt and unfolded his newspaper. "I'm sorry you two don't get on any better."
"We'd get on well enough if he'd only believe that when I say 'no' I mean it."
He stared at her, suddenly possessed by a new thought. "Is there anybody else in the field, Cly?"
"There are many other men that I prefer to Blanchard Cayley."
"What is this about your being with this palmist chap?"
"Did Blanchard tell you that?" she asked with exquisite scorn.
"Have you seen much of this Granthope?"
"I've seen him four times."
"And you have invited him to my house?"
"He has been here."
Mr. Payson rose and shook his eye-glasses at her. "I must positively forbid that!" he exclaimed. "I won't have you receiving that fellow here. From what I hear of him he's a fakir, and I won't encourage him in his attempts to get into society at my expense."
"Do you mean to say that you forbid him the house, father? Isn't that a bit melodramatic? I wouldn't make a scene about it. I am twenty-seven and I'm not absolutely a fool. I think you can trust me."
"Then what have you been doing with him? What does it all mean, anyway?"
"As soon as I know what it means, I'll tell you. At present, I think we had better not discuss Mr. Granthope."
He blustered for a while longer, iterating his reproaches, then simmered down into a morose condition, which lasted through dinner. Clytie knew better than to discuss the subject with him. Her calmness had returned, though she kept her color and did not talk. The two went into the library and read.
Shortly after eight o'clock the door-bell rang. As it was not answered promptly, Mr. Payson, still nervous, irascible and impatient, went out into the hall, growling at the servant's delay.
He opened the door, to see Francis Granthope, rather white-faced under his black hair, supporting himself on crutches.
"Is Miss Payson at home?" he asked, taking off his hat.
"Yes, she is. Won't you step in? What name shall I give her, please?" Mr. Payson spoke hospitably.
"Thank you. Mr. Granthope," was the answer.
The old man turned suddenly and returned his visitor's hat.
"I beg your pardon," he said sternly, "but Miss Payson is not at home—for you—and I don't intend that she ever shall be. I have heard enough about you, Mr. Granthope, and I desire to say that I can not consent to your being received in my house. You're a charlatan and a fakir, sir, and I do not consider you either my daughter's social equal nor one with a character respectable enough to associate with her. I must ask you to leave this house, sir, and not to come again."
Granthope's eyes glowed, and his jaws came together with determination. But he said only:
"Very well, Mr. Payson, I'm sure that I do not care to call if I'm not welcome. This is, of course, no place to discuss the subject, but I shall not come here again without your consent. As to my meeting her again, that lies wholly with her. You may be sure that I shall not annoy her with my attentions if she doesn't care to see me. But I ask you, as a matter of courtesy, to let Miss Payson know that I have called."
"See that you keep your word, sir—that's all I have to say," was Mr. Payson's reply, and he stood in the doorway to watch his visitor down the garden walk. He remained there until Granthope had descended the steps, then walked down after him and watched him to the corner.
Mr. Payson returned to the library sullenly.
"That palmist of yours had the impertinence to come here and ask for you," he informed Clytie, "but I sent him about his business, and I expect he won't be back in a hurry."
Clytie looked up with a white face. "Mr. Granthope, father?" She rose proudly and faced him. "Do you mean to say that you were rude enough to turn him away? It's impossible!"
Mr. Payson walked up and down the room in a dudgeon.
"I certainly did send him away, and what's more, I told him not to come back."
Clytie, without another word, ran out into the hall. The front door was flung open and her footsteps could be heard on the gravel walk. Mr. Payson seated himself sulkily.
In five minutes more she had returned, slowly, her hair blown into a fine disorder, the color flaming in her cheeks, her eyes quickened.
"What in the world have you been doing?" her father demanded.
"I wanted to apologize for your rudeness," she answered, "but I was too late."
CHAPTER X
A LOOK INTO THE MIRROR
"He gives exact and truthful revelations of all love affairs, settles lovers' quarrels, enables you to win the affection and esteem of any one you desire, causes speedy and happy marriages—"
"He gives exact and truthful revelations of all love affairs, settles lovers' quarrels, enables you to win the affection and esteem of any one you desire, causes speedy and happy marriages—"
Granthope put down the paper with a look of disgust. It was his own advertisement, and it had appeared daily for months. He took up his desk telephone with a jerk, and called up theChroniclebusiness office.
"This is Granthope, the palmist. Please take out my displayed ad., and insert only this: 'Francis Granthope, Palmist. 141 Geary St., Readings, Ten Dollars. Only by Appointment. Ten till Four.'"
There was now a red-headed office boy in the corner where Fancy Gray used to sit. Granthope missed her jaunty spirit and unfailing comradeship. Not even his endeavor to give his profession a scientific aspect amused him any longer. He had lost interest in his work. He was uneasy, dissatisfied, blue. He went into his studio listlessly, with a frown printed on his brow. Until his first client appeared he lay upon the big couch, his eyes fixed upon the light.
He had been there a few moments when his office boy knocked, and opening the door, injected his red head.
"Say, dere's a lady in here to see you, Mr. Granthope!"
"Who is she?"
The boy grinned. "By de name of Lucie. Says you know her."
"Tell her I can't see her."
Granthope turned away, and the boy left.
The room was as quiet as a padded cell, full of a soft, velvety blackness, except where the single drop-lamp lighted up the couch. Ordinarily the place was, in its strange dark emptiness, a restful, comforting retreat. Now it imprisoned him. Above his head the great ring of embroidered zodiacal signs shone with a golden luster. They were the symbols of the mysterious dignity of the past, of the dark ages of thought, of priestcraft and secret wisdom of the blind centuries that had gone. But, a modern, incongruously set about with such medieval relics, he felt for the first time, undignified. In their time these emblems had represented all that existed of knowledge. Now, to him they stood for all that was left of ignorance and superstition; and it was upon such instruments he played.
He read palms perfunctorily that Saturday. He seemed to hear his own voice all the while, and some dissociated function of his mind scoffed continually at his chicanery. It was the same old formula: "You are not understood by those about you. You crave sympathy, and it is refused. You are extraordinarily sensitive, but when you are most hurt you often say nothing. You have an intuitive knowledge of people. You have a wonderful power of appreciation and criticism. People confide in you. You are impulsive, but your instinct is usually sure"—the same professional, easy rigamarole, colored with what hints his quick eyes gave him or his flagging imagination suggested.
Women listened avidly, drinking in every word. How could he help telling them what they loved so to hear? They asked questions so suggestive that a child might have answered. They prolonged the discussion of themselves, obviously enjoying his apparent interest. He caught himself again and again playing with their credulity, their susceptibility, and hated himself for it. They lingered, smiling self-consciously, and he delayed them with a look. In very perversity, he began deliberately to flatter their vanity in order to see to what inordinate pitch of conceit their minds would rise. He affected indifference, and even scorn—they followed after him still more eagerly. He grew, at last, almost savagely critical, an instinct of cruelty aroused by such complacent, egregious egoism. They fawned on him, like spaniels under the lash.
After a solitary dinner he returned to his rooms. For an hour or two he tried to lose himself in the study of a medical book. Medicine had long been his passion and his library was well equipped. Had he been reading to prepare himself for practice he could not have been more thorough. To-night, however, he found it hard to fix his attention, and in despair he took up a volume of Casanova'sMemoirs. There was an indefatigable charlatan! The fascinating Chevalier had never wearied in ill-doing; he kept his zest to the last. He skipped to another volume to follow the pursuit of Henriette, of "C.V.," of Thérèse. The perusal amused him, and he got back something of his cynical indifference.
It was after eleven o'clock when he laid down the book and rose to look, abstractedly, out of the office window. He longed for an adventure that should reinstate him as his old careless self.
He left his rooms, went up to Powell Street and finally wandered into the noisy gaiety of the Techau Tavern. The place was running full with after-theater gatherings, and he had hard work to find a table. All about him was a confusion of excited talk, the clatter of dishes, the riotous music of an insistent orchestra. Parties were entering all the while, beckoned to places by the head waiter. The place was garish with lights and mirrors.
Granthope had sat there ten minutes or so, sipping his glass, noticing, here and there, clients whom he had served, when, between the heads of two women, far across the room, he recognized Mrs. Page. It was not long before she saw him, caught his eye, and signaled with vivacity. The diversion was agreeable; he rose and went over. A glance at her table showed him a company most of whose members he had met before, but with whom, only a few months since, he would have counted it a social success to be considered intimate. While not being quite of the elect, they held the key of admission to many high places in virtue of their wit and ingenious powers to please. They were such as insured amusement. Granthope himself was this evening desirous of being amused.
With Mrs. Page was Frankie Dean, the irrepressible, voluble, sarcastic, a devil in her black, snapping eyes, as cold-blooded as a snake. It was she who had so nearly embarrassed him at the Chinese supper at the Maxwells'. She eyed him now, dark, feline, whimsically watching her chance to make sport of him. With them was a young girl from Santa Rosa, newly come to San Francisco, an alien in such a company. She was slight and dewy, vivid with sudden color, with soft, fervent eyes that had not yet learned to face such audacity as her companions practised. Keith and Fernigan were there, also, like a vaudeville team, rollicking with fun, playing into each other's hands, charging the company with abandon. Lastly, "Sully" Maxwell sat, silent, happy, indulgent, with his pockets filled with twenty dollar gold-pieces, which he got rid of at every opportunity. He spoke about once every fifteen minutes, and then usually to the waiter. "A good spender" was Sully—that quality and his unfailing good-nature carried him into the gayest circles and kept him there unnoticed, until the bills were to be paid.
To Granthope, tired with his day's work, in conflict with himself, morbidly self-conscious, the scene was stimulating. There was an atmosphere of inconsequent mirth in the group, which dissolved his mood immediately. The women, smartly dressed, bubbling with spirit, quick with repartee—Keith and Fernigan, their sparkling dialogue interrupted, waiting for another auditor—even Sully, prosperous, good-natured, hospitably making him welcome—the group attracted him, rejuvenated him, enveloped him with their frivolity. The party was in the first effervescence of its enthusiasm. Mrs. Page was at her sprightly best, impellent, a gorgeous animal. Even Frankie Dean, whom he did not like, was temptingly piquant and brisk. The little girl had a novelty and virginal charm. He had been out of his element all day. Here, he could be himself. He could take things easily and jocosely, and have no thought of consequences. His mood disappeared like a shattered soap-bubble, and he was caught into their jubilant atmosphere.
He was introduced to the girl from Santa Rosa, who looked up at him timidly but with evident curiosity, as at a celebrity, and sat down between her and Mrs. Page. Sully Maxwell took advantage of the new arrival to order another round of drinks—club sandwiches, golden bucks—till he was stopped by Frankie Dean. Keith and Fernigan recommenced their wit. Mrs. Page looked at him with all kinds of messages in her eyes, as if she were quite sure that he could interpret them. The girl from Santa Rosa said nothing, but, from time to time, gave him a shy, curious glance from her big brown eyes. Granthope's spirits rose steadily, but his excitement had in it something hectic. In a sudden pause he seemed to remember that he had been speaking rather too loudly.
After the party had refused, unanimously, further refreshment, Sully proposed that they should all drive out to the Cliff House, and they left the restaurant forthwith to set out on this absurd expedition. It was already long past midnight; the adventure was a characteristic San Francisco pastime for the giddier spirits of the town.
Sully was for hiring two hacks; Mrs. Page, giggling, vetoed the proposition, and Frankie Dean supported her. Decidedly that would be commonplace; why break up the party? The girl from Santa Rosa looked alarmed at the prospect. Granthope smiled at her ingenuousness, and liked her for it. The result of the sidewalk discussion was that Sully obligingly mounted beside the driver, and the six others squeezed into the carriage, the door banged, and they proceeded on their hilarious way toward the "Panhandle" of the Park. On the rear seat Granthope sat with Mrs. Page and Frankie Dean on either hand, protesting that they were perfectly comfortable. Opposite him the girl from Santa Rosa leaned forward on the edge of the cushion, shrinking away from the two men beside her.
Mrs. Page made an ineffectual search in the dark for Granthope's hand. Not finding it, she began to sing, under her breath:
"It was not like this in the olden time,It was not like this, at all!"
"It was not like this in the olden time,It was not like this, at all!"
"It was not like this in the olden time,
It was not like this, at all!"
and Frankie Dean, quick-witted enough to understand the situation, remarked, "Oh, Mr. Granthope doesn't read palms free, Violet; you ought to know that!" She darted a look at him.
So it went on frothily, with chattering, laughter, snatches of song, jests and stories, punctuated occasionally by the rapping of Sully's cane on the window of the carriage, as he leaned over in a jovial attempt to participate in the fun. Granthope, for a while, led the spirit of gaiety that prevailed, told a story or two, "jollied" Mrs. Page, laughed at Keith's inconsequence, accepted Frankie Dean's challenges. But the frank, bewildered eyes of the little girl from Santa Rosa, fixed upon him, disconcerted him more than once.
The carriage soon entered Golden Gate Park. The night was warm and still, the dusk pervaded with perfumes. Under the slope of Strawberry Hill Maxwell stopped the carriage and ordered them all out to invade the shadowy stillness with revelry. The night air was that of belated summer, full of a languor that comes seldom to San Francisco which has neither real summer nor real winter, and the wildness of the place, remote, unvisited, was exhilarating. A mock minuet was started, races run, even trees climbed by Frankie Dean the audacious, with shrieks and laughter, all childishly with the sheer joy of living. Granthope and the girl from Santa Rosa, after watching the sport with amusement for a while, left the rest and walked on past a turn of the road, to stand there, discussing the stars, while the cries of the two women came softened along the sluggish breeze. The girl took off her hat and breathed deeply of the night air. They walked on farther through the gloom, till only an occasional faint shout reached them from the party. Granthope put the girl at her ease, pointed out the planets and the constellations and explained the principles of ancient astrology. They had begun to forget the rest when they were overtaken and captured again and the crowded carriage took its way towards the sea.
Upon a high ledge of rock jutting out into the Pacific, at the very entrance to the Bay of San Francisco, stands the Cliff House, a white, wooden, many-windowed monstrosity with glazed verandas, cupolas, frivolous dormers, cheap, garish, bulky, gay, seemingly almost toppling into the water. Here come not only such innocently holidaying folk as Fancy Gray and Gay P. Summer, not only jaded tourists and the Sunday-outing citizens who lie upon the warm beach below and doze away a morning in the sun and wind. It was patronized of old by the buggy-riding fraternity, the smokers, the spenders, with their lights-o'-love, as the most popular of road-houses. The cable-cars and the two "dummy" railroad lines have changed its character somewhat, but it is still a show-place of the town. There is good eating, a gorgeous view of the Pacific, and the sea-lions on the rocks below.
Here Mrs. Page's party alighted, near three o'clock in the morning. The bar only was open, its white-frocked attendant sleeping behind the counter. This they entered, yawning from their ride. The barkeeper was awakened, peremptorily, and was ordered to prepare what he had for refreshment. With hot beans from the heater, tamales, potato salad, cold cuts, crackers and cheese, he laid a table in a small dining-room. Sully Maxwell undertook all the arrangements, fraternized with the barkeeper, selected beverages, not forgetting ginger ale for the girl from Santa Rosa. Mrs. Page and Frankie Dean, somewhat disheveled, retired, to appear trig and trim and glossy in the gaslight, ready for more gaiety. Granthope, meanwhile, had wandered out upon the veranda to watch the surf dashing on the rocks, to note the yellow gleam from the Point Bonita light, and smell the salt air; to get his courage up, in short, for another round of animation. The instant he returned Mrs. Page went at him.
"Now, Frank," she said, "it won't do to sulk or to flirt with Santa Rosa. What's got into you, anyway? You must positively do something to amuse us."
"Office hours from ten till four," Keith murmured audibly.
Frankie Dean turned on him: "They never let you out of your cage at all!"
Fernigan, thereat, began an absurd pantomime that half terrified the girl from Santa Rosa. He pretended to be a monkey behind the bars of a cage, eating peanuts—and worse. It was shockingly funny. The company roared, all but Granthope. He was at the point of impatience, but replied with what sounded like ennui:
"I'm a bit stale, Violet; you'll have to excuse me if I'm stupid to-night. I came to be entertained."
Frankie Dean looked at him mischievously. "Never mind, Mr. Granthope, she'll come back."
It was obviously no more than a cant phrase, intended for a witticism. Mrs. Page, however, took it up with mock seriousness.
"Who's 'she', now?I'mback in the chorus again! Therewasa time, Frank—" Her voice was sentimental; she tilted her head and looked at him, under half-closed eyelids, across the table.
"I say, Granthope, you ought to publish an illustrated catalogue of 'em. There's nothing doing for amateurs, nowadays. When women pay five dollars to have their hands held what chance is there for us?" This from Keith, with burlesque emphasis.
Mrs. Page would not be diverted. "No, but really, Frank; whoisshe? I've quite lost track of your conquests."
"Oh, you know I'm wedded to my art," he said lightly.
"Yes, and it's the art of making love, isn't it?"
"'No further seek his merits to disclose,'" said Keith, and Fernigan added, "'Nor draw his frailties from their dread abode.'"
The girl from Santa Rosa looked suddenly bursting with intelligence, recognizing the quotation. She started to finish it, then stopped; her lips moved silently. Granthope smiled.
Frankie Dean had been watching her chance for another at his expense. Now she asked, with apparent frankness: "Mr. Granthope, can you tell character by the lines on the soles of the feet?"
"Science of Solistry," murmured Keith to the Santa Rosa girl.
"Let's try it!" Mrs. Page exclaimed. "I will, for one! Do you know my second toe's longer than my great toe? I'm awfully proud of it. I can prove it, too!"
"Go on!" Frankie Dean dared her.
The girl from Santa Rosa stared, her lips apart. "Why, every one's is, aren't they?"
"No such thing!" Mrs. Page stopped and almost blushed. A chorus of laughter.
"Oh, there are a good many better ways of telling character than that," said Granthope.
"Yes," Keith put in. "Indiscreet remarks, for instance."
Mrs. Page bit her lip and shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, if I were going in for indiscreet remarks I might make a few aboutyou!"
Here Sully interposed. "Isn't this conversation getting rather personal? I move we discard all these low cards. This is no woman's club. The quiet life for mine."
The hint was taken by Keith, who began an English music-hall song, to the effect that "John was a nice good 'usband, 'e never cared to roam, 'e only wanted a quiet life, 'e only wanted a quiet wife; there 'e would sit by the fireside, such a chilly man was John—" where he was joined in the chorus by Fernigan—"Oh, I 'opes and trusts there's a nice 'ot fire, where my old man's gone!" Maxwell pounded in time upon the table. The girl from Santa Rosa hazarded a laugh.
Granthope looked on listlessly, ever more detached and introspective. This was what he had been used to, since he could remember, but now, in the stuffy little room, with its ghastly yellow gas-light, the smell of eatables and wine, the pallor of the women's faces, the flush of Maxwell's, the desperate frivolity, the artificiality of it all bored him. He wondered, whimsically, why he had ever looked forward to being the companion of such a society as this. It was all harmless enough, unconventional as it was, but he tasted the ashes in his mouth. Perhaps, after all, he was only not in the mood for it. He tried to smile again.
Fernigan seized a small Turkish rug from the floor and hung it in front of him, like a chasuble. Standing before the company he intoned a sacrilegious parody, like everything he did, funny, like everything he did, atrocious:
"O, sanctissimus nabisco in colorado maduro domino te deum, e pluribus unum vice versa et circus hippocriticam, mephisto apollinaris nux vomica dolores intimidad mores; O rara avis per diem cum magnum vino et sappho modus vivendi felicitas," to the droned "A—men."
Keith then enlivened the company with what quaint parlor tricks he knew, or dared, from making of a napkin a ballet dancer pirouetting upon one toe, to limericks that were suppressed by Sully Maxwell, Mrs. Page laughed prodigiously, showing all her teeth, staring with her great eyes, vivid in her every expression, flamboyant, sleek and glossy, abounding in temperament. Frankie Dean smiled maliciously and plied the performers with her acrid wit. The girl from Santa Rosa listened, her cheeks burning.
At six they went outside for fresh air and promenaded the glazed veranda until the sun rose. In front of them was the broad Pacific, stretching out to the Farralones, even to Japan. To the north, across the bar, yellowed with alluvium from the San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers, a mountainous coast stretched to far, misty Bolinas. Southward ran the broad, wide beach exposed by the ebb tide. It was damp and cool; the last spasm of summer had given way to the brisk, stimulating weather that was San Francisco's usual habit. Granthope buttoned his light overcoat tightly over his rumpled evening dress and walked with the girl from Santa Rosa, enjoying the scene quietly, speaking in monosyllables. The others had a new burst of effervescence, still more desperate than ever; their hilarity was indefatigable. Keith walked along the tops of the tables, leading Mrs. Page. Frankie Dean and Fernigan two-stepped the length and breadth of the wide platform, joking incessantly.
A walk up the beach was then suggested, and, after a preliminary furbishing of faces and hair, they went down the steep rocky road to the wide strand, and proceeded along the shore.
Granthope, falling behind, saw that the girl from Santa Rosa alone had waited for him. She gazed at him steadily with grave eyes.
"Well," he said kindly, "what d'you think of San Francisco?"
She looked down at the sand and drew a circle with her toe before she answered.
"It's pretty gay here, isn't it?"
"Oh, well, if you call this sort of thing gay!"
The girl looked immensely relieved, gave him a quick, searching glance, and said shyly: "Do you know, Mr. Granthope, I have an idea that you didn't enjoy it any more than I did!"
He smiled at her, then silently grasped her hand. She blushed and turned away.
"I thought it was going to be great fun," she said, as they walked on. "I never was up all night before. It's awfully exciting. But people do look awful in the morning, don't they?"
She herself was like a blossom wet with dew, but Granthope knew what she meant, well enough. He had watched the lines come into Mrs. Page's face and her mouth droop at the corners; he had noticed the glitter fade from Frankie Dean's black eyes, and her lids grow heavy.
"You ought never to have come," he said. "I think you'd better go home and get to bed. Suppose we leave them and walk across to the almshouse and take the Haight Street cars?"
"Oh, d'you think they'd mind, if we did?"
"They'd never notice that we were gone, I'm sure."
"I'm afraid you'll find me awfully stupid. Miss Dean is very witty, isn't she?"
"I'd rather be stupid."
"You're sure I won't bore you?"
"I don't feel much like talking, myself. I have plenty to think about. Suppose we don't say anything, unless we have something to say."
"Oh, I didn't know you could do that—in San Francisco!"
He laughed sincerely for the first time that night.
As they came to the place where the beach road turned off for Ingleside, the rest of the party was some distance ahead. They were sitting upon some rocks, and, as Granthope looked, he saw Mrs. Page rise, lift her skirts and walk barefooted across the sands, down to the water's edge. She turned and waved her hand to him. He took off his hat to her and pointed inland in reply. Then he climbed the low sand-hills with his companion and struck off southward, along the road. The girl had colored again.
Her confidence in him was soothing. She was so serious and innocent, so quick with a country girl's delicate observation of nature, that he fell into a more placid state of mind. She became more friendly all the while, till, despite her confession of shyness, she fairly prattled. He let her run on, scarcely listening, busy with his own thoughts. And so, up the long road to the almshouse, resting in the pale sunshine occasionally, through the Park to the end of the Haight Street cable-line they walked, and talked ingenuously.
She lived in "The Mission," and there, having nothing better to do, he escorted her, and at last, in that jumble of wooden buildings so multitudinously prosaic, between the Twin Peaks and the Old Mission, he left her. She bade him good-by apparently with regret. Widely different as they were in mind and temperament, they had, for their hour, come closely together. Now they were to recede, never again, perhaps, to meet.
He walked in town along Valencia Street, through that curious "hot belt" which defies the town's normal state of weather, turned up Van Ness Avenue, still too busy with his reflections to shut himself up in his studio. It was Sunday morning—he had almost forgotten the day—and he turned up his collar, to conceal what he could of his evening attire and its wilted, rumpled linen, somewhat uncomfortable in the presence of the church-going throngs which pervaded the avenue.
He had reached the top of the long slope leading to the Black Point military reservation, and was pausing upon the corner of Lombard Street, when, looking up the hill, he saw Clytie Payson coming down the steep, irregular pathway that did service for a sidewalk. He stepped behind a lamp-post and watched her, uncertain whether or not to let her see him.
She came tripping down, picking her way along the cleated double plank, too intent upon her footsteps to look far ahead. The sight of her made him a little trepid with excitement; it focused his dissatisfaction with himself. He knew, now, what had disturbed him. It was the thought of her. She had forced him to look at himself from a new point of view, with a new, critical vision. He longed for her approval. Her gentle coercion was drawing him into new channels of life, and he felt a sudden need for her help. He was losing his whilom comrades, his old familiar associations repelled him. He had nothing to sustain him now, but the thought of her friendship.
But, in his present state, he had not the courage to address her. As a child plays with circumstances and makes his own omens, he left the decision to chance. If she turned and saw him, he would greet her and throw himself on her grace. If not, he would pass on without speaking, much as he longed to speak.
She came down to the corner diagonally opposite and paused for a moment, looking off at the mountains and the waters of the Golden Gate. He saw her make a sudden movement, as if waking from her abstraction, then she walked over in his direction. He came out from his cover and went to meet her.
"Good morning, Mr. Granthope!" She was smiling, holding out her hand. "I thought I recognized you! Something told me to stop a moment, and wait. Then suddenly I saw you. You see, you can't escape me!"
He was visibly embarrassed, conscious of his significantly unkempt appearance. She, however, did not show that she noticed it.
"How is your ankle?" was her first inquiry. He assured her that it had given him no trouble for a week, and he expressed his thanks to her for her help.
"I've been hoping I might see you," she said, "to apologize for the reception you received the last time you called. I can't tell you how unhappy it made me, nor how I regret it."
"Mayn't I see you a while now?" He felt at such a disadvantage in his present condition that it was embarrassing to be with her, and yet he longed for another hour of companionship.
"Let's walk down to the Point," she said. "I can get in the reservation, and it will be beautiful."
As they walked down across the empty space at the foot of the avenue and along the board-walk over the sand, she talked inconsequently of the day and the scene, evidently attempting to put him at his ease. The little girl from Santa Rosa had given him a passive comfort. Clytie's companionship was an active and inspiring joy. His depression ceased; a sane, wholesome content filled him. He watched her graceful, leopard-like swing and the evidences of vitality that impelled her movements.