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--"

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 the _Chronicle_ business 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's _Memoirs_. 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 Therese. 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'm_ back in the chorus again! There _was_ a 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; who _is_ she? 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 about _you_!"

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.

They passed the sentry who nodded to her at the gate, went past the officers' quarters, down a little path lined with piled cannon-balls, out to a small promontory that overlooked the harbor. Here there was an old Spanish brass cannon in its wooden mortar-carriage, and a seat on the very edge of the bluff. The harbor extended wide to the southeast. Inshore was a covey of white-sailed yachts in regatta, just tacking, to beat across to Lime Point, opposite.

As they sat down, Clytie said, "Now do tell me about Miss Gray. How is she?"

"She's not with me any more."

She lifted her brows. "Where is she?"

"I don't know, quite."

"You haven't seen her since she left?"

"No, not for two weeks."

Clytie frowned and bit her lip, then shook her head silently. Then she remarked, as if to herself, "I like her. I'm sure she's fine."

"She likes you, too."

"I wish I might see her," she went on, her eyes fixed on the mountains. "I'd like to do something for her. I might get her a position in my father's office, I'm sure, if she'd take it. I have a curious feeling, though, that it is she who will be more likely to do something for me."

"If she ever can, you may be sure she will. Fancy is true blue."

"You didn't--have any misunderstanding with her, did you?"

"Oh, no."

She seemed to notice his reluctance to explain, and did not pursue the subject.

She turned and her eyes fell upon his hand, which lay carelessly upon his knee. "Let me see your palm," she said impulsively. "I've never looked at it carefully. I suppose you've told your own fortune often enough."

He gave his left hand to her. She barely touched it, holding it lightly, but he felt the magnetism of the contact almost as a caress. "You'll find my line of fate shows that I'm to change my career," he remarked. "It's broken at the head line, you see, and begins over again."

"Now, let me look at your right hand."

She looked at it, and her expression changed subtly. It was as if she had found some secret satisfaction in his palm, some answer to her desires.

"What d'you see?"

"The heart line."

In his left hand it began near the root of the second finger, at the mount of Saturn, not, as he would have preferred, farther toward the index finger, at the mount of Jupiter. He wondered if that meant to her what it did, in his professional capacity, to him--an indication of more sensual tastes. Half its length was cobwebbed with tiny branches, and punctuated with islands; then it ran, deep and clear to the edge of the palm, almost straight. In his right palm the line was cleaner, simpler, undivided.

She had begun to color, faintly; she had turned her eyes from him. Into her loveliness had come a new element of charm. There was something special in it, something for him alone; it was as if she had been signaling to him, and he had not, till now, understood. Instantly every line in her body seemed to be imbued with a new grace, a new meaning, translating her spirit. He was too full of the inspiration to speak; he could only look at her, irradiated, as if he had never seen her before. To his admiration for her beauty, his respect for her character, his interest in her mind, there was added something more; the total was not to be accounted for by the sum of these. And the wonderful whole satisfied the divine fastidiousness of his nature. She was for him the supreme choice. Her mind worked like his. Her very size pleased him. He seemed to know her for the first time. He had desired her, before, for her beauty and her intelligence; he had thought calmly of love and marriage. But now he felt the supreme demand for possession, because----only because he _must_ have her--because nothing else in his life mattered.

A secret ray of thought seemed to carry the message back to her, for, apparently embarrassed by the intensity of his silence, she rose and walked a few paces, with her hands behind her back, gazing off at the harbor. It was not thought that he sent, however, for he could not think; it was a new function of his soul aroused, excited, thrilling him with the power of its vibration.

When that wave broke, he was at a loss for words. How could he say how much he wanted her? How could he ask if she, too, felt that same thrill, while he winced under this new, mortifying sense of the cheapness and falsity of his life? He could not yet bring himself to confess the miserable truths; it was not the larger, more obvious things he was afraid of, for she knew well enough of these--but one or two shameful details came into his mind and made him shrink from himself.

She turned to him again, composed, though still she showed elation.

"I'm sorry Fancy had to go," she said earnestly. Her eyes were steady, though her lips were still quivering.

"It was too bad. But it was necessary."

She gave him a swift, searching look.

"Oh! Then you are--finding out?"

"I'm being pushed on, somehow. It's really queer, as if the force came from outside of myself--"

"Oh, no! I'm sure not!"

"Something is working out in me--"

Clytie smiled rarely, her face illuminated. "Oh, fate deals the cards, but we have to play them ourselves. And--I think--you've taken several tricks already."

"You mean--about Fancy Gray?"

"No--that I can't judge--I never have judged. Your advertisement in the papers."

He was immensely surprised, pleased. "You have noticed that already? Why, this is only the very first day--"

"I have watched for it every day."

There was another pause. Her remark was revealing--yet he dared not hope too far. He felt so near to her, so intimate in that revelation that he feared to deceive himself. Oh, he was for her, now! His heart clamored for possession, yet he could not declare himself. They were upon different spiritual altitudes. Women, before, had come at his whistle. Now he was awkward, timid, excited with expectancy, his heart going hard.

"There is a reason why I was glad to see that change, Mr. Granthope," she continued. He waited for her words eagerly. She looked away, her eyes following the sails in mid-channel. "I'm thinking of leaving town."

The announcement fell upon him like a blow. "You are going away!" he exclaimed, his voice betraying him.

"Not for a week or two, perhaps."

"A week!" The words stung him. "Don't go--yet!" he exclaimed faintly.

"I don't want to go--yet. My aunt in the East has invited me to visit her for six months." She spoke calmly, but did not look at him.

"I'll have to hurry, won't I?" he said with a desperate, whimsical inflection.

"Yes. You'll have to hurry."

For a while he was too agitated to speak. If there had needed anything more to convince him of his state of mind, this sufficed. He was aware, by the sense of shock, how much he cared.

"Before I go, I'd like to ask a favor of you, Mr. Granthope."

It almost comforted him. "What is it--of course, I'll do anything."

"Will you see if you can find out something about that little boy who lived with Madam Grant?"

There it was again! This blow turned his mind black. She was gazing at him earnestly--he could hardly bear her look, so placid, so sincere. "You mean--clairvoyantly?" he stammered.

"Yes. I think we might do it, together."

He rose to walk up and down the top of the bank for a few minutes. Once he stopped and gazed at her fiercely, under tensely set brows. Finally he returned hopelessly.

"I'm sorry, but I can't do that."

"Why not?"

He hesitated. "I know I couldn't get anything."

"But you did before?"

He longed desperately to confess everything, but he could not speak. He felt her recede from him; their delightful intimacy was broken. She did not insist further, and self-contempt kept him silent, till he broke out, "Oh, it's you who must help _me_!"

"I've done all I can for you. You must find out the rest for yourself."

"I don't dare to think how much you have to find out about me."

"Tell me!"

"I haven't the courage."

She let her hand fall lightly upon his for an instant. "Well, that only proves, doesn't it, that, so long as there's anything insurmountable in the way of directness and simplicity, you haven't gone all the way. I'll wait."

"I'm so afraid of losing your sympathy and your respect."

"But you can't stop still!"

"I'm afraid of losing _you_!"

He saw the tears come into her eyes. "Ah, there's only one way you can lose me," she said deliberately.

"How?" He was eager.

She did not answer, but arose slowly. "I think I must be going."

He followed her, thoroughly dissatisfied with himself at having let his moment pass. He understood her well enough. It was only by stopping still, as she had said, that he could lose her. She had started a change in him, and it must go on. Something which tied his hands, his mind, must be cut; he must be free of that before he could speak.

They retraced their steps, she talking, as when they had come, inconsequently; he, moody, troubled inwardly, self-conscious. She was to give him one more hope, however. As she left him, on the avenue, she offered her hand, and smiled.

"Don't give it up," she said, and turned away, leaving him standing alone, still fighting his battle with himself.

He had enough to think of, as he strode home, ill-satisfied with himself and in a turmoil of thought in regard to her. There was no question of mastery, now; she had beaten him at his own game. It was only a question of surrender.

He went up into his office and stood, looking about. The row of plaster casts confronted him. He took one from the row and examined it. There, too, was a heart line split up with divergent branches, punctuated with little islands, beginning at the Mount of Saturn, herring-boned to the end, at the double crease which signified two marriages. The fingers were short and fat, the thumb being far too small. Small joints, broad lines, deep cushions at the Mounts of Venus and Mercury, deep bracelets at the wrist--Granthope's eyes read the signs as if the hand were a face, or a whole body.

As he turned the cast over thoughtfully, to look at the back, it dropped from his grasp and fell to the floor, breaking into a dozen pieces. Bits of wire projected humorously from the stump. He smiled.

"Kismet!" he said to himself. "Adieu, Violet!"

He was stooping to clear away the fragments when he heard a knock upon the door. Going to answer it, he found Professor Vixley waiting.

"Hello, Frank," said the slate-writer. "Can I see you for a few minutes?"

"Come in." Granthope drew up a chair, but stood himself with his hands in his pockets while his visitor made himself comfortable.

Vixley's shrewd eyes roved about the room and rested upon the broken cast. "Hello," he said, "cat got into the statuary?"

"Accident," said the palmist.

"Plenty more where they come from, I s'pose. Say, Frank, let's see the Payson girl's hand, will you?"

"I haven't it."

"You mean a cast, of course, eh? I expect you've pretty near got the original, ain't you?"

"Not yet." Granthope frowned.

"But soon--"

Granthope shrugged his shoulders.

"It was about Payson I wanted to see you," the Professor went on. "Seems to me you ain't standin' in like you agreed to. Gert claims you got cold feet on the proposition. I thought I'd drop in and chew it over."

Granthope did not answer, and the frown on his forehead persisted. Vixley took out a cigar and lighted it, threw his match on to the desk, looked about again, and grinned. "Then you _have_ got cold feet, eh?" he remarked, crossing his legs.

Granthope looked the Professor squarely in the eye for a moment. Then he said deliberately: "Vixley, what will you take to leave town?"

Vixley showed his astonishment in the stare with which he replied. His lip drew away from his yellow fangs, and a keen light came into his black eyes. "Oho! That's the game, is it? Somethin' doin', after all, eh? Well, well!" He mouthed his cigar meditatively and twirled his thumbs in his lap.

"Come, name your price," said Granthope sharply.

"I'd like a few details first."

"What's the figure?"

Vixley was in no hurry, and enjoyed his advantage. "I thought you was up to something, Frank. Gert's pretty sharp, but Lord, she's only a woman. You fooled _her_ a bunch. She really thought you'd got a change of heart. So you want to cut up the money all by your lonely, eh? Well, now, what'll you give to have me pull out of it?"

"I'll give you five hundred dollars," said Granthope.

"Nothin' doin'," said Vixley decidedly. "Why, it's worth more than that to me just as it stands, and I ain't but just begun. If you can't do better than that, why, it's no use talkin'."

"I asked you what you wanted. Let's have it, and I'll talk business."

"Payson's pretty well fixed," said Vixley. "I s'pose if you marry the girl you'll get a good wad of his money."

"Never mind the girl. I want to buy you out."

"Well, I'd have to think it over. You know we got a great scheme, and if it works it'll mean a steady income. But I don't mind turnin' over money quick. You make it a thousand dollars and I'll agree to leave you alone, and pull off Gert into the bargain. You'll have to fix Masterson yourself. I don't trust him."

Granthope began to walk the room again, thinking. He returned finally, to say: "It won't do merely for you to agree to keep out of it. I know you too well. This is a business agreement. If I give you a thousand, will you leave town? That's my offer."

Vixley reflected. "That ain't so much. I dunno as I could afford to spoil my whole business for that."

"Pshaw. You don't make that in a year!"

"Not last year, perhaps, but I expect to this."

"Then you refuse?"

"Wait a minute. Have you got the money on hand?"

"No, I haven't." Granthope's face clouded. "But I have an idea I might raise it. I could pay you in instalments. But you'd have to be outside of California to get it. That's understood."

Vixley rose. "Well, when you've got the money you can begin to talk. If you can raise it, as you say, I may agree. After all, I could use a thou' just at present, and I s'pose I could operate in Chicago till you let me come back. Say I accept."

"All right. As soon as I can raise five hundred, I'll see you, and buy your ticket. Until then, I expect you to leave Payson alone."

"Will _you_ leave him alone? That's the question! I don't propose to have no interference until you make good with the money."

"I'll make good, all right," said Granthope.

"Very well, then." Vixley rose and buttoned what buttons were left on his coat. "When you're ready to do business, I'm ready. But you see here!" He shook a long, bony finger at the palmist. "If you go to work and try any gum-games with the old man before then, Frank, I'll break you--like that there hand." He pointed down to the cast on the floor. Then he added easily: "Not that it would do you any good if you did, though. I'll attend to _that_. I got to protect myself. It'll be easy enough to fix it so the old man won't take much stock in what you tell him."

"I expect that's so," Granthope shrugged his shoulders. "I don't mind saying that if I thought I could do anything that way, I would."

"So long, then. The sooner you make your bid, the cheaper it'll be." He turned from the door and looked the palmist over. "You're a good one, Frank. I don't deny you got brains. I wouldn't mind knowin' just what you was up to. It must be something elegant." He came up to Granthope and gestured with both hands. "Say--why don't you let me in? We could work it together, and I'll lose Gertie. I ain't no fool, myself, when it comes right down to business."

Granthope laughed sarcastically. "I hardly think you can help much in this. It's a rather delicate proposition, and I'll have to go it alone. Just as soon as I get the cash I'll let you know."

For an hour after that Granthope sat in his office thinking it over. His offer to Vixley had come on the spur of the moment, and, although he did not regret it, he was at a loss to know how he could make it good. He went over his accounts carefully, inspected his bank-book, made a valuation of his property. He could see no way, at present, to raise sufficient money to buy Vixley off, and yet to sit still and let him go on with Clytie's father was intolerable. He had seen men ruined by such wiles, and his own conscience was not clean in this matter. There seemed no way of escape.

Late that afternoon he decided to call on Fancy Gray. He had hardly seen her since the night she left, and he was troubled in her regard, also. He. dreaded to know just what she was doing, and how she stood it. He had long attempted to deny to himself that she cared too much for him, and always their fiction had been maintained--that fiction which, during their pretty idyl at Alma, so long ago, had crystallized itself into their whimsical motto: "No fair falling in love!" He had kept their pact well enough. He dared not answer for her.

Fancy lived in a three-story house on O'Farrell, Street, near Jones Street, a place back from the sidewalk, with a garden in front and on one side. Fancy had a room on the attic floor, with two dormer windows giving upon the front yard. As Granthope turned in the gate and looked up at her windows, he was surprised to see one of them raised. Fancy's arm appeared, a straw hat in her hand. The next instant the hat sailed gracefully out into the air, curving like an aeroplane. It dropped nearly at his feet. He picked it up, thinking that she would look out after it, but instead, the sash was lowered.

A minute afterward a young man, bareheaded, and apparently violently enraged, appeared at the front door. Granthope walked up and presented the hat to Mr. Gay P. Summer, who took it, staring, without a word of thanks, and stalked sulkily away.

The door being left open, Granthope walked up three flights of stairs and knocked at Fancy's room. There was no reply. He called to her. The door was instantly flung open.

"Why, hello, Frank! Excuse me. I thought it was my meal-ticket coming back to bore me to death again." Fancy began to laugh. "You ought to have seen him. He simply wouldn't go, after I'd given him twenty-three gilt-edged tips, and so I had to throw his hat out of the window to get rid of him."

"I saw him. I think he won't come back. He looked rather uncomfortable."

Fancy sat down on the bed unconcernedly, clasping her hands on her crossed knees, while Granthope took a seat upon a trunk.

"Say, Frank, these people who expect to annex all your time and pay for it in fifty cent _table d'hotes_ are beginning to make me tired. There's nothing so expensive as free dinners, I've found! The minute you let a man buy you a couple of eggs, he thinks he's in a position to dictate to you for the rest of eternity. Why, one dinner means he's hired you till eleven o'clock, and I run out of excuses long before that. No, you don't get anything free in this world, and many a girl's found _that_ out!"

Granthope smiled. Fancy was at her prettiest, with a whimsical animation that he knew of old. Nothing delighted him so much as Fancy in her semi-philosophic vein.

She ran on: "Gay has just proposed to me again--I've lost tally, now. The one good thing about him is that he's always ready to make good with the ring whenever I say the word. He takes me seriously just because I never explain. But all the encouragement I've ever given him is to accept. Gay's the kind that always calls you 'Little girl,' no matter how high you are, and tells you you're 'brave'! There's no one quite like you, Frank--"

As she spoke, her gaiety slowly oozed away, till she sat almost plaintively watching him. Then she smiled and shook her head slowly. "Don't get frightened, I won't do anything foolish." She sprang up and tossed her head. Then, turning to him, she said: "Say, Frank, do you know Blanchard Cayley?"

"Why, I've just heard of him, that's all. He's a friend of Miss Payson's."

"She isn't--fond of him, is she?" Fancy demanded.

"Oh, I hope not! Why?"

"Nothing. Only, I met him, one night, at Carminetti's. Gay had just thrown me down hard. He came round, afterward, and apologized." Fancy looked across the room abstractedly as she talked. Upon the wall were strung a collection of empty chianti bottles in their basket-work shells, a caricature by Maxim, a circus poster and other evidence of her recent conversion to the artistic life. She spoke with a queer introspective manner. "I had a queer feeling about Mr. Cayley. You know, for all I'm such a scatterbrain, I do like a man with a mind. I like to look up to a man. He's awfully well-read. Of course, he isn't as clever as you, but he sort of fascinates me--I don't know why. He interests me, although I can't understand half he says. I suppose he makes me forget. There's nothing like knowing how to forget. But you're sure Miss Payson isn't too fond of him?"

"I'd like to be surer," said Granthope. He, too, was looking fixedly across the room--at the mottoes and texts upon the wall, on the mantel, and over her bed--"Do it Now!" "Nothing Succeeds like Success"--and such platitudes as, printed in red and black, are sold at bookshops for the moral education of those unable to think for themselves.

Fancy slid gently off the bed, and dropped to the floor in front of him. Her hand stole fondly for his, and clasped it, petting it.

"How is she, Frank?"

He put his hand on her hair and smoothed it affectionately. "Fine, Fancy, fine."

"Oh--I hope it's all right, Frank."

"I don't know, Fancy. You'd hardly recognize me, these days. I'm losing my sense of humor. I'm becoming a prig, I think."

Fancy laughed. "Well, there's plenty of room in that direction. But I don't think she'd mind your being a devil occasionally. Women don't have to be saints to be thoroughbreds. And there's many a saint that would like to take a day off, once in a while!"

"Have you seen Vixley, lately?"

Fancy grew serious. "No. Is he still working the old man?"

"Yes, I suppose so. I saw him to-day. I offered him a thousand dollars to leave town, Fancy."

Fancy looked up at him with wonder in her eyes. "Why, Frank! What do you mean? A thousand dollars? Why, you haven't got that much, have you?"

"No. Not yet. But I'll get it, somehow."

"You mean--that you're trying--to save Payson--on her account, Frank?"

He avoided her glance. "On her account--and perhaps my own."

Fancy rose impulsively and put her arms about him. "Do let me hug you, Frank, just once!"

He saw her eyes grow soft. She released herself quickly, as if the embrace, simple as it was, hurt her. She stood in front of him and watched him soberly.

"Frank, _I_ never could make you--" She stopped, the tears welling in her eyes. Then she turned and ran out of the room.

He rose, too, and paced up and down, wondering at her mood. His track was short, for the roof sloped on one side, and the place was encumbered with Fancy's paraphernalia and furniture. His eyes fell, after a while, upon a cigar box on her bureau. It stood upright, under the mirror, and had little doors, glued on with paper hinges, so that the two opened, like the front of a Japanese shrine of Buddha. He went to it and looked at it. Thoughtlessly, with no idea of committing an indiscretion, little suspecting that it could hold anything private or sacred, he swung the little doors open. Then he shut them hastily and walked to the window with a clutch at his heart. Inside he had seen his own photograph. Before it was a little glass jar with a few violets. They were fresh, fragrant. Lettered upon a strip of paper pasted on the inside was the inscription:

No Fair Falling In Love.

He walked away hurriedly to stare hard out of the window.

She came into the room again as he composed himself, and her face, newly washed, was radiant. She reseated herself upon the bed, and, taking up a pair of stockings, proceeded to darn a small hole in the heel.

"Have you got a position, Fancy?"

She laughed. "Vixley wrote me a note and told me he had a job for me if I wanted it, but I turned him down. You couldn't guess what I _am_ doing, Frank."

"What?"

"Detective." She looked up innocently.

"You don't mean--"

"No! Just little jobs for the chief of police, that's all. I'm investigating doctors who practise without a license, that's all. I say, Masterson had better look out or he'll get pulled."

"I'm sorry you haven't anything better, Fancy. Miss Payson said she'd get you a place in her father's office if you'd go. Would you?"

"No." Fancy's eyes were upon her needle.

"Why not?"

"Frank," she said, "do you remember asking me to inquire about that soldier the little girl with freckles wanted to find?"

"Yes. I thought you said that the ticket agent at the ferry had left, and so you couldn't get anything."

"He was only off on a vacation. He's come back, and I saw him yesterday. He remembered that soldier perfectly--I don't see how anybody could fail to--he must look awful. He said he bought a ticket for Santa Barbara."

"That's good. I hope she'll come in again," said Granthope. "She was a nice little thing."

"She was real, Frank, and that's what few people are, nowadays."

He looked at her for a minute. "There's no doubt that you are, Fancy."

"I wish I were. I'm only a drifter, Frank." She kept on with her darning, not looking up.

"Fancy, I want to do something for you. Won't you let me help you?"

"I'm all right, Frank. I told you I wanted to have some fun before I settled down again. But if I ever do need anything, I'll let you know."

"Promise me that--that whenever you want me, you'll send for me, or come to me, Fancy!"

She looked up into his eyes frankly. "I promise, Frank. When I need you, I'll come."

She was a blither spirit after that, till he took his leave. It had been an eventful day for Francis Granthope. He had swung round almost the whole circle of emotions. But not quite.

*