Chapter X: Part 10

"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.

*CHAPTER XI*

*THE FIRST TURNING TO THE LEFT*

At five o'clock the next afternoon Blanchard Cayley sitting at a window of his club, opening the letters which he had just taken from his box in the office. He had his hat on, a trait which always aroused the ire of the older members. Beside him, upon a small table, was a glass of "orange squeeze," which he sipped at intervals.

At this hour there were some twenty members in the large room reading, talking or playing dominoes. Others came in and went out occasionally, and of these more than half approached Cayley to say effusively: "Hello, old man, how goes it?" or some such similarly luminous remark. This was as offensive to Cayley as the wearing of his hat in the club was to the old men. Nothing annoyed him so much as to be interrupted while reading his letters. Yet he always looked up with a smile, and replied:

"Oh, so-so--what's the news?"

To be sure, Cayley's mail to-day was not so important that these hindrances much mattered. The study of Esperanto was his latest fad. With several Misses, Frauleins and Mademoiselles on the official list of the "Esperantistoj," and whom he suspected of being young and beautiful, he had begun a systematic correspondence. The greater part of the answers he received were dull and innocuous, written on picture post-cards. From Odessa, from Siberia, Rio de Janeiro, Cambodia, Moldavia and New Zealand such missives came. Those which were merely perfunctory, or showed but a desire to obtain a San Francisco post-card for a growing collection, he threw into the waste-basket. Others, whose originality promised a flirtation more affording, he answered ingeniously.

A man suddenly slapped him on the shoulder.

"Hello, Blanchard, have a game of dominoes?"

"No, thanks."

"Come and have a drink, then."

"No, thanks, I'm on the wagon now."

"Go to the devil."

"Same to you."

The man grinned and dropped into a big chair opposite Cayley and lighted a cigar. Then his glance wandered out of the window. Cayley put the bunch of letters in his pocket and yawned.

"By Jove, there's a peach over there," said the man. Cayley turned and looked.

"In front of the shoe store. See?"

She was standing, looking idly into the show window--a figure in gray and red. Scarlet cuffs, scarlet collar, scarlet silk gloves. Her form was trim and her carriage jaunty.

It was Fancy Gray--drifting. She stood, hesitating, and shot a glance up to the second story of the club house where the men sat. She caught Cayley's eye and smiled, showing her white teeth. Her eyebrows went up. Then she turned down the street and walked slowly away.

"Say," said the man, "was that for you or for me, Blan?"

"I expect it must have been for me. Good day."

"Something doing? Well, good luck!"

Cayley walked briskly out of the room, got his hat, and ran down the front steps. Fancy was already half a block ahead of him, nearing Kearney Street. He caught up with her before she turned the corner.

"I've been looking for you for three weeks," he began.

She paused and gave him a saucy smile. "You ought to be treated for it," was her somewhat elliptical reply.

"I'm afraid I am pretty slow, but I've got you now. It seems to me you're looking pretty nimble."

"Really? I hope I'll do."

"Fancy Gray, you'll indubitably do. Won't you come to dinner with me somewhere, where we can talk?"

"I accept," said Fancy Gray.

"Are you still with Granthope?"

She hesitated for a second before replying. "No, I left last week."

"What's the row?"

"Oh, nothing, I got tired of it."

"That's not true," he said, looking into her eyes, which had dimmed.

"Cut it out then, I don't care to talk about it."

"I bet he didn't treat you square. He's too much of a bounder."

At this her face flamed and she stopped suddenly on the sidewalk, drawing herself away from him. "Don't," she pleaded, "don't, please, or I can't go with you--"

He saw now what was in her eyes and put his hand into her arm again. "Come along, little girl, I won't worry you," he said gently. And they walked on.

She recovered her spirits in a few moments, but the sparkling of her talk was like the waves on the surface of an invisible current sweeping her toward him. It was too evident for him, used as he was to women, not to notice it. She was a little embarrassed, and such self-consciousness sat strangely on her face. Behind that flashing smile and the quick glances of her eye something slumbered, an emotion alien to such debonair moods as was her wont to express, and as foreign to the deeper secret feelings she concealed. Her eyes had darkened to a deeper brown, the iris almost as dark as the pupils. Cayley did, as she had said, fascinate her. Whether the charm was most physical or mental it would be hard to say, but her demeanor showed that it partook of both elements. She gave herself up to it.

He began to play upon her. He took her arm affectionately, and the tips of his fingers rested upon the little, cool circle of her wrist above her gloves. She did not remove his hand. His eyes sought hers again and again, vanquishing them with his meaning glances. Her pulse beat faster. She talked excitedly. A soft wave of color swept up from her neck.

"Suppose we dine at the 'Poodle Dog'?" he suggested.

"I'm game," she replied; "I like a quiet place where there's no music."

"We can get a room up-stairs where we won't be interrupted."

"Anywhere for mine. I've got a blue bean and I'd like to be cheered up."

She was cheered up to an unwonted pitch by the time the dinner was over. As she sat, flushed, mettlesome with wine, thrilling to his advances, he plied her artfully, and she responded with less and less discretion. She could not conceal her impulse towards him.

"Do you think I'm pretty?" she asked, her eyes burning.

"Indeed you are--you're beautiful!" he said, his hand resting on hers.

"But I don't want to be beautiful--that's what you are when you're queer and woozly--like the girls Maxim paints," she pouted. "They're awful frights--they're never pretty. I want to be just pretty, not handsome or good-looking or anything apologetic like that--that's what men call a girl when she can't make good with her profile. You've got to tell me I'm pretty, Blan, or I won't be satisfied."

"You certainly are pretty," he laughed, as he filled her glass.

"That makes me almost happy again," she mused. "Let's forget everything and everybody else in the world. It's funny how I've been thinking about you and wondering if I'd ever see you again. I had a good mind to put a personal in the _Chronicle_. It seemed to me as if I simply had to see you, all this week. Wasn't it funny at Carminetti's? I guess I was struck by lightning that time. You certainly did wireless me. It's fierce to own up to it, Blan, but I like you. I've stood men off ever since I was old enough to know what they wanted, but you've got me hypnotized. How did you do it?" She laughed restlessly.

"Why, if I hadn't thought you were a little too thick with Granthope, I would have looked you up before."

"I haven't been there for a week. The wide, wide world for mine, now."

"That's pretty tough, to fire you after you'd been with him for two years, isn't it?"

"I don't want to talk about that, really, Blan; it's all right."

He poured out another glass of champagne for her and she drank it excitedly. Cayley still caressed her free hand, but his eyes were not upon her; he was thinking intently. She took his head in her two hands and turned it gently in her direction.

"There! _That's_ where you want to look. Here is Fancy, Blan, right here."

"I see you. I was only thinking--do you know, you look like the pictures of Cleopatra?" he suggested. "Did you ever hear of Cleopatra, Fancy?"

She laughed. "I guess I ought to--I played Cleopatra once."

"Did you really--where?--comic opera or vaudeville?"

"Oh, never mind where--I made a hit all right." She leaned back in her chair, clasping her hands behind her head, smiling to herself. A tress of hair had fallen across her ear; it did not mar her beauty.

"I'll bet you got every hand in the house, too."

Fancy became suddenly convulsed with giggles. She sipped her glass and choked as she tried to swallow the wine.

Cayley passed this mysterious mirth without comment. "Granthope looks as if he had been an actor, too."

"Oh, yes, we played together--but only as amateurs." She smiled mischievously.

Cayley followed her up. "He has a fine presence; I should think he'd be good at it. He has lots of women running after him, hasn't he?"

"Oh, he did have--women to throw at the birds--women to warm up for supper--women to burn, and he burned 'em, too. But he won't stand for them now," said Fancy.

"What's the matter? Is he stung?" He filled her glass again.

"Yep. He's cut 'em all out--even me. That's why I'm here."

"But he works them, though?"

"Oh, no, Blan, Frank's straight, sure he is. He doesn't graft any more. He hasn't for--some time."

"I don't believe that," said Cayley.

"Oh, of course, he investigates cases sometimes, but he don't work with cappers the way he did. He's going in for high society now, and he doesn't need to do anything but wear a swallow-tail and get up on his hind legs and drink tea."

Blanchard took a chance shot. "I hear he's trying to marry a rich girl."

Fancy, for the first time, seemed to come to herself. She looked hard at Cayley.' "What are you driving at, Blan? What do you want to talk about that for? It's all off between me and Frank, but I'm not going to knock him. He's all right, Frank is. I'd rather talk about Me, please! Talk about Fancy, Blan, won't you? Fancy's so tired of talking shop."

Her elbow was upon the table and her little round chin in her palm, as she looked at him under drooping, languorous lids. "How pretty am I, Blan? Tell me! There's nothing quite so satisfactory, after a good dinner, as to hear how pretty you are."

He looked quizzically at her, and quoted: "'_Tout repas est exquis qui a un baiser pour dessert_.'"

"What does that mean, Blan? I don't understand Dago talk."

"It means that you're pretty enough to eat, and I'm going to eat you," he replied, making a motion toward her.

She put him off gaily, but only as if to delay the situation. "Oh, pshaw! haven't you had enough to eat yet? That won't go with me, Blan; I've got to have real eighteen carat flattery put on with a knife. I can stand any amount of it. I love it! Whether you mean it or not--I don't care, so long as it sounds nice, I'll believe it. I'll believe anything to-night. Now, how do you like my eyes, Blan?"

He took a long, close look at them, then with an amused smile he said: "Mountain lakes at sunset shot with refracted fires. Or, electric light on champagne--will that do?"

Fancy pouted. "I knew a fellow once who told me they were just like the color of stones in the bed of the brook ... When I was up at Piedra Pinta, I looked in a shallow part of the creek--where I could see my reflection and the bottom at the same time..." Her voice died off in a dreamy monotone; then she looked up at him again sleepily.

"How about my nose?"

"_Thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon which looketh toward Damascus_," he quoted.

"Whatever does that mean?" She opened her eyes as wide as she could. "Is my poor old nose as big as that?" She felt of it solemnly.

"It is straight and strong and full of character. And _Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, ... thy teeth are like a flock of sheep ... which come up from the washing; whereof every one bear twins_."

"That's _very_ swell, indeed," said Fancy, "is it original?"

He laughed. "No. It's from one of the oldest poems in the world."

"I'd like to read that book." Fancy was getting drowsy. "Tell me some more."

"_Thine head upon thee is like Carmel..._"

"I'm glad we're getting into California at last."

"_And the hair of thine head like purple;--_"

She shook her head, "Oh, no, don't call it purple, please. Frank says it's Romanesque."

"_Thy neck is as a tower of ivory._"

"That's the _second_ tower," said Fancy, closing her eyes, "I guess that'll be about all for the towers. I think I'd rather have you make it up as you go along. It's more complimentary." She laid her head upon her arms on the table. "My ears are really something fierce, aren't they?"

Cayley touched them in investigation. "They're a bit too small, of course, and they're very pink, but they're like rosy sea-shells touched by the dawn."

Fancy murmured softly: "'She sells sea-shells. She shells sea-shells--She shells she shells'--say, I'm getting woozly."

She roused herself to laugh softly; her head drooped again.

"Then I'll let you kiss them--once!" she whispered.

"I'm afraid I talked too much last night," she said to him the next evening. "I hope I didn't say anything, did if I didn't quite know what I was doing. Funny how the red stuff throws you down!"

"Oh, no, you didn't give anything away. You're pretty safe, for a woman."

"Coffee's what makes _me_ talk," she said, "if you ever want to make me loosen up, try about four small blacks and I'll use up the dictionary."

He saw her nearly every day after that, but, even with the aid of coffee, he was unsuccessful in his attempts to make her more communicative. At the mention of Granthope's name she froze into silence or changed the subject.