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 formulae 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.

[Illustration: 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 know _what_ to do, and you're saying to yourself all the time, 'Now, what _shall_ I 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 seance 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 of _Harper'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."

*