Chapter II: Part 2

"God, I hope so! It'll make things interesting. Nothing matters now. I haven't really wanted anything for years; and when you don't want anything, Fancy, the garlands are hung for you in every house."

"Did you ever have a conscience, Frank?"

"Not I. I shouldn't know what to do with it, if I had one. I don't see much difference between right and wrong. We give them what they want, as clergymen do. It may be true and it may be false. So may religion. There are a hundred different kinds--some of them teach that you ought to kill your grandmother when she gets to be fifty years old. Some teach clothing and some teach nakedness. Some preach chastity--and some the other thing. Who's going to tell what's right? My readings are scientific; my predictions may be true, for all I know. Some I help and some I harm, no doubt. But from all I can see, God Himself does that. Take that Bennett affair! He lost his money, but didn't he have a good taste of life? We'll never know the truth, anyway. Why not fool fools who think there's an answer to everything, and make 'em happy? Do you remember that first time we played for Harry Wing? I was new at it then. When I crawled through the panel and put on the robe, the tears were streaming down my face to think I was going to fool an old man into believing I was his dead son. What was the result? He was so happy that he gave me his gold watch to be dematerialized for identification. He got more solid satisfaction and comfort out of that trick than he had out of a year of sermons. I only wish I could fool myself as easily as I can fool others--then I could be happy myself."

"Why, aren't you happy, Frank?" Fancy asked, her eyes full of him. "I wish I could do something to make you happy--I'd do anything!"

"Oh, I'm not unhappy," he said lightly, neglecting her appeal. "I can't seem to suffer any more than I can really enjoy. I suppose I haven't any soul. I need ambition--inspiration. But we must get to work. Are you ready?"

Fancy nodded.

"August 5th," he dictated. "Mrs. Riley. Age sixty-five. Spatulate, extreme type. Wrist, B. Fingers, B, X, 5. Life 27. Head 18. Heart 4. Fate 12. 3 girdles. Venus B. Mars A. Thumb phalange over-developed. Right, ditto. Now:--married three times, arm broken in '94, one daughter, takes cocaine, interested in mines. Last husband knew General Custer and Lew Wallace. Accidentally drowned, 1877. Accused of murder and acquitted in 1878. Very poor.

"Don't forget to look up Lew Wallace, Fancy! Go down to the library to-night, will you?" he said, laying down his note-book.

"Where did you ever get that old dame?"

"Madam Spoll sent her here. She's easy, but no money in her. Still, I like to be thorough, even with charity cases; you never know what may come of them."

The telephone bell prevented Fancy's reply. She took up the receiver and said "Yes" in a languishing drawl.

"Yes. Number 15? .... Payson? Spell it .... Hold the line a minute." She turned to Granthope, her ear still to the receiver, her hand muffling the mouth-piece.

"Funny. Speak of angels--here's Madam Spoll now! She wants to know if you've got anything about Oliver Payson?"

"Payson?" he repeated. "Oliver Payson? No, I don't think so, have we?"

"I don't remember the name, but I'll run over the cards. Talk about method! I wish Madam Spoll had some! P., Packard, Page--no; no Payson here." She returned to the telephone. "No, we have nothing at all. Good-by." Then she hung up the receiver.

Granthope, meanwhile, had been walking up and down the room, frowning.

"It's queer--that name is somehow familiar; I've heard of it somewhere. Oliver Payson--Oliver Payson."

"Funny how you never can think of a thing when you want to," said Fancy, sharpening her pencil.

"I know something about Oliver Payson," Granthope insisted. "But it's no use, I can't get it. Perhaps it will come to me."

"You never know what you can do till you stop trying," Fancy offered sagely.

Granthope spoke abstractedly, gazing at the ceiling. "It's something about a picture, it seems to me."

He walked into his studio, still puzzling with blurred memories. Fancy took up _The Second Wife_.

At ten o'clock the door opened, and Fancy's hand flew to her back hair. A girl of perhaps twenty years with intense eyes entered timidly. Her hair was distracted by the wind and her color was high, increasing the charm of her pretty, earnest, finely freckled face. She wore a jacket a little too small for her, with frayed cuffs. Her shoes were badly worn; her hat was cheap, but effective.

"I called to see Mr. Granthope; I think I have an appointment at ten," she said.

"Miss Heller?" Fancy asked. The girl nodded. Fancy took inventory of the girl's points, looking her up and down before she replied, "All right; just be seated for a moment, please."

She walked to the studio and met Granthope coming out. They spoke in whispers.

"Let her down easy," Fancy suggested. "It's a love affair. She has a letter in her coat pocket, all folded up; you can see the wrinkles where it bulges out. Hat pin made of an army button, and she doesn't know enough to paint. Make her take off her coat and see if her right sleeve isn't soiled above where she usually wears a paper cuff to protect it. She is half frightened to death and she has been crying."

"All right," said Granthope. "I'll give her five dollars' worth of optimism."

Fancy put her hand in his softly. "Say, Frank, just charge this to me and be good to her, will you?"

"All right. If you like her, I'll do my best. She'll be smiling when she comes out, you see if she isn't."

As the girl went in for her reading, Mrs. Page walked into the reception-room, and nodded condescendingly. She was a dashing woman of thirty-five, full of the exuberance and flamboyant color of California. Her hair was jet black and glossy, massively coiled upon her head; her features were large, but regular and well formed; her figure somewhat voluptuous in its tightly fitting tailor suit of black. She was a vivid creature, with impellent animal life and temperament linked, apparently, to a rather silly, feminine brain. Her mouth was large, and in it white teeth shone. She was all shadows and flashes, high lights and depths of velvety black. From her ears, two spots of diamond radiance twinkled as she shook her head. When she drew off her gloves, with a manner, more twinkles illuminated her hands. Still others shone from the cut steel buckles of her shoes. She was somewhat overgrown, flavorless and gaudy, like California fruit, and her ways were kittenish. Her movements were all intense. When she looked at anything, she opened her eyes very wide; when she spoke she pursed her lips a bit too much. Altogether she seemed to have a superfluous ounce of blood in her veins that infused her with useless energy.

Fancy eyed her pragmatically, added her up, extracted her square root and greatest common divisor. The result she reached was evident only by the imperious way in which she invited her to be seated and the nonchalant manner in which, after that, she gazed out upon Geary Street.

Mrs. Page, however, would be loquacious.

"Shall I have to wait long?" she asked. "I have an engagement at eleven and I simply _must_ see Mr. Granthope first! It's very important."

"I don't know," said Fancy coolly. "It depends upon whether he has an interesting sitter or not. Sometimes he's an hour, and sometimes he's only fifteen minutes." She spoke with a slightly stinging emphasis, examining, meanwhile, the spots on her own finger-nails.

"Oh," said Mrs. Page, and it was evident that the remark gave her an idea as to her own personal powers of attraction. "I thought Mr. Granthope treated all his patrons alike."

"Sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn't," was Fancy's cryptic retort. She watched the effect under drooped lashes.

The effect was to make Mrs. Page squirm uneasily, as if she didn't know whether she had been hit or not. She took refuge in the remark: "Well, I hope he will give me a good reading this time."

"It all depends on what's in your hand," Fancy followed her up, smiling amiably.

Mrs. Page minced and simpered: "Do you know, somehow I _hate_ to have him look at my hand, after what he said before. He told me such _dreadful_ things, I'm afraid he'll discover more."

"Why do you give him a chance, then?" said Fancy coldly.

"Oh, I hope he'll find something better, this time!"

"Weren't you satisfied with what he gave you?" Fancy asked. "I have found Mr. Granthope usually strikes it about right."

"Oh, of course, I'm satisfied," Mrs. Page admitted. "In fact, I trust him so implicitly that I have acted on his advice. But it's rather dreadful to know the truth, don't you think?"

Fancy nodded her head soberly. "_Sometimes_ it is." She accented the adverb mischievously.

"Oh, I don't mean what you mean at all!"

"I know. You mean it's dreadful to have other people know the truth?"

"No; but I can't help my character, can I? It's not _my_ fault if I _have_ faults. It's all written in my palm and I can't alter it. Only, I mean it's awful to know exactly what's going to happen and not be able to prevent it."

"It's worse not to want to." Fancy waved her hand to some one in the street.

Mrs. Page withdrew from the conversation, routed, and devoted herself to a study of the Chinese masks, casting an occasional impatient glance into the anteroom. Fancy polished her rings with her handkerchief.

Granthope's voice was now heard, talking pleasantly with Fleurette, who was smiling, as he had promised. As she left, flushed and happy, Granthope greeted Mrs. Page, and escorted her, bubbling with talk, into the studio. The door closed upon a pervading odor of sandalwood, Mrs. Page's legacy to Fancy, who sniffed at it scornfully.

Many cable-cars had passed without Fancy's having recognized any one worth bowing to, before the next client appeared; but, at that visitor's entry, she became a different creature. Her eyes never really left him, although she seemed, as he waited, to be busy about many things.

He was a smart young man, a sort of a bank-clerk person, dressed neatly, with evidence of considerable premeditation. His hair was parted in the middle, his face was cleanly shaven. His sparkling, laughing eyes, devilishly audacious, his pink cheeks and his cool self-assured manner gave him an appearance of juvenile, immaculate freshness, which rendered an acquaintance with such a San Francisco girl as Fancy Gray, easy and agreeable. He laid his hat and stick against his hip jauntily, and asked:

"Could I get a reading from Mr. Granthope without waiting all day for it?" As he spoke he loosed a frivolous, engaging glance at her.

"He'll be out in just a moment," Fancy replied with more interest than she had heretofore shown. "Won't you sit down and wait, please?"

He withdrew his eyes long enough to gallop round the room with them, but they returned to her like horses making for a stable. He took a seat, pulled up his trousers over his knees, drew down his cuffs, felt the knot in his tie and smoothed his hair, all with the quick, accurate motion due to long habit. "Horrible weather," he volunteered debonairly.

"It's something fierce, isn't it?" said Fancy, opening and shutting drawers, searching for nothing. "It gets on my nerves. I wish we'd have one good warm day for a change."

"Been out to the beach lately?" he asked, eying her with undisguised approval. He breathed on the crown of his derby hat and then smelt of it.

"No," she replied. "I don't have much time to myself. I hate to go alone, anyway." Fancy looked aimlessly into the top drawer of her desk.

"That's too bad! But I shouldn't think you'd ever have to go alone. You don't look it."

"Really?" Fancy's tone was arch.

"That's right! I know some one who'd be willing to chase out there with you at the drop of the hat."

Fancy, appearing to feel that the acquaintance was making too rapid progress, said, "I don't care much for the beach; it's too crowded."

"That depends upon when you go. I've got a car out there where we could get lost easy enough. Then you can have a quiet little dinner at the Cliff House almost any night."

"Can you? I never tried it."

"It's time you did. Suppose you try it with me?"

Fancy opened her eyes very wide at him and let him have the full benefit of her stare. "Isn't this rather sudden? You're rushing it a little too fast, seems to me."

"Not for me. I'm sorry you can't keep up. You don't look slow."

Fancy turned to her engagement book.

"You must have known some pretty easy ones," she said sarcastically.

The snub did not silence him for long. He recrossed his legs, drummed on the brim of his hat, and began:

"Say, did you ever go to Carminetti's?"

"No, where is it?"

"Down on Davis Street. They have a pretty lively time there on Sunday nights. Everybody goes, you know--gay old crowd. They sing and everything. It's the only really Bohemian place in town now."

"I'm never hungry on Sundays," Fancy said coolly.

"Nor thirsty, either?"

"Sir?" she said in mock reproof, and then burst into a laugh.

"Say, you scared me all right, _that_ time!"

"You don't look like you would be scared easy. I guess it's kind of hard to call _you_ down."

He folded his arms and squared his shoulders. "I don't know," he said. "I don't seem to make much of a hit with _you_!"

"Oh, you may improve!"

"Upon acquaintance?"

"Perhaps. You're not in a hurry, are you?"

"That's what I am!" He went at her now with more vigor. "I say, would you mind telling me your name? Here's my card."

He rose, and, walking over to the desk, laid down a card upon which was printed, "Mr. Gay P. Summer." Fancy examined it deliberately. Then she looked up and said:

"My name is Miss Gray, if you _must_ know. What are you going to do about it?"

"I'll show you!" he laughed, drawing nearer. What might possibly have happened (for things do happen in San Francisco) was interrupted by sounds predicting Mrs. Page's return.

"Say, Miss Gray, I'll ring you up later and make a date," he said under his breath. Then he turned to Mrs. Page and stared her out of the room with undisguised curiosity.

"You can see Mr. Granthope now," said Fancy, unruffled by the competition.

He made an airy gesture and followed the palmist into the anteroom.

Fancy grew listless and abstracted. After a while she went to the closet, examined herself in the glass on the door, adjusted the back of her belt, fluffed her hair over her ears and reseated herself. Then she took her book languidly and began to read.

There came a knock on the door.

"Come in," Fancy called out, arousing herself again. The new-comer was one who, though at least twenty-seven, was still graciously modeled with the lines of youth. Her head was poised with spirit on her neck, but, like a flower on its stem, ready to move with her varying moods, from languor to vivacity. Her hair was a light, tawny grayish-brown, almost yellow, undulant and fine as gossamer. In the pure oval of her face, under level, golden brows, her eyes were now questioning, now peremptory, but usually smoldering with dreams, hiding their color. Their customary quiescence, however, was contradicted by the responsiveness of her perfectly drawn mouth--a springing bow, like those of Du Maurier's most beautiful women. The upper lip, narrow, scarlet, so short that it seldom touched the lower, showed, beneath its lively curve, a row of well-cut teeth. With such charm and delicacy of person her small, flat ears and her proud, sensitive nostrils fell into lovely accord. She wore a veil, and was dressed in a concord of cool grays, modishly accented with black. Her movements were slow and graceful, as if she had never to hurry.

"I believe I have an appointment with Mr. Granthope for half-past eleven," she said in a smooth, low, rather monotonous voice.

"Miss Smith?" Fancy asked briskly, but with a more respectful manner than she had shown Mrs. Page.

The lady blushed an unnecessary pink, and blushed again to find herself blushing. She admitted the pseudonym with a nod.

"Take a seat, please," Fancy said. "Mr. Granthope will be ready for you in a few minutes." Then her eyes fluttered over the visitor's costume, rested for a second upon her long black gloves, darted to her little, patent-leather shoes, mounted to her black, picturesque hat, and sought here and there, but without success, for jewelry.

The lady took a seat in silence. She repaired the mischief the wind had done to her hair, raising her hand abstractedly, as she looked about the room. The Chinese masks did not entertain her long, but the head of Hypnos she appeared to recognize with interest. From that to Fancy, and from Fancy to the row of casts, her glance went, slowly, deliberately. Then she took a large bunch of violets from her corsage, and smelled them thoughtfully.

Fancy began to play with one of her bracelets, clasping and unclasping it. The lock caught in a bangle-chain, and, frowning, she bent to unfasten it. In an instant the lady noticed her dilemma, smiled frankly, and walked over to the desk, drawing off her long glove as she did so.

"Let me do it for you!" she said, and, taking Fancy's hand, she busied herself with the clasp.

Fancy watched her amusedly. The lady was so close that she could enjoy the odor of the violets and a fainter, more exquisite perfume that came from the diaphanous embroidered linen blouse, whose cost Fancy might have reckoned in terms of her week's salary. With careful, skilful movements the chain was unfastened, but the lady still held Fancy's hand in her own.

"Oh, what beautiful hands you have!" she exclaimed. "I never saw anything so lovely in my life! Let me see them both! I wonder if you know how pretty they are!"

She looked questioningly into Fancy's face and the twinkle in Fancy's eyes answered her.

"Oh, of course you do! Mr. Granthope must have told you! He has never seen a prettier pair, I'm sure!" She laid them carefully down, palms to the table, and smiled at Fancy.

"I see you've got the right idea about hands," said Fancy Gray archly. "That second finger's pretty good; did you notice it?"

Both laughed.

"I hope you don't think I'm rude," said the lady.

"You don't worry me a bit, so long as you can keep it up. I'm only afraid you're going to stop! But it seems to me you've got a pretty small pair of hands yourself! No wonder you noticed mine!" Fancy gazed at them, as if she were surprised to find any one who could compete with her own specialty.

For answer, Miss Smith, as she had called herself, drew her violets from her coat, kissed them and handed them to Fancy. Fancy played up; kissed them too, nodded, as if drinking a health, and tucked them safely away on her own breast. Then she treated Miss Smith to the by-play of her delicious dimples, as she said, "Come in as often as you like, especially when you have flowers!"

"Miss Smith's" face had become wonderfully alive, and she gazed at Fancy so frankly admiring that now Fancy had to drop her own eyes in embarrassment. At this moment Granthope's voice was heard as he came out of his studio with Gay P. Summer. A kind of shyness seemed to envelop the visitor and she drew back, her color mounting, her lids drooping.

"I'm all ready for you, Miss Smith," said Granthope, coming into the room and bowing suavely. "Come in, please."

Leaving Mr. Summer in conversational dalliance with Fancy Gray, the lady followed the palmist into his studio. As she walked, her graceful, long-limbed tread, with its easy swing, seemed almost leopard-like in its unconscious freedom, her head was carried somewhat forward, questing, her arms were slightly extended tentatively from her side, as if she almost expected to touch something she could not see.

*CHAPTER II*

*TUITION AND INTUITION*

It was a large room, unfurnished except for a couch in a recess of the wall and a table with two chairs drawn up under an electric-light bulb which hung from the ceiling. The walls were covered from floor to cornice by an arras of black velvet, falling in full, vertical folds, sequestering the apartment in soft gloom. Over the couch, this drapery was embroidered with the signs of the zodiac in a circle--all else was shadowy and mysterious.

The young woman walked into the place with her leisurely stride--her chin a little up-tilted, her eyes curious. In the center of the room she stopped and looked slowly and deliberately about her. The corners of her mouth lifted slightly with amusement, evidently at the obvious picturesqueness of the studio.

Granthope watched her keenly. With his eyes and ears full of Fancy Gray's ardent, dramatic youth, sparkling with the sophistication of the city, slangy, audacious, gay, this girl seemed almost unreal in her delicacy and exquisite virginity, a creature of dreams and faery, the personification of an ideal too fine and fragile for every-day. Her face showed caste in every line. He was a little afraid of her. Her bearing compelled not only respect, but, in a way, reverence--a tribute he seldom had felt inclined to pay to the _mondaines_ who visited him.

His confidence, however, soon asserted itself. He had found that all women were alike--there were, as in chess, several openings to his game, but, once started, the strategy was simple.

"Well, how do you like my studio?"

"It's like dreams I've had," she said. "I like it. It's so simple."

"Most people think it too somber."

"It is somber; but that purple-black is wonderful in the way it takes the light. And it's all so different!"

"Yes, I flatter myself it is that. But I'm 'different' myself."

"Are you?" She turned her eyes steadfastly upon him for the first time, as if mentally appraising him, as he stood, six feet of virility, handsome, vivid and nonchalant. The color which had risen to her cheeks still remained.

"You are, too," he went on, examining her as deliberately.

She smiled faintly and took a seat by the table and removed her veil. Her face was now clearly illuminated, and Granthope's eyes, traveling from feature to feature in quest of significant details, fell upon her left cheek. His look was arrested at the sight of a brown velvety mole, a veritable beauty-spot, heightening the color of her skin. It was charming, making her face piquant and human. His hand went to his forehead thoughtfully.

At the sight of this mark upon her cheek, something troubled him. His mind, always alert to suggestive influences, registered the faintest impression of a thought at first too elusive to be called an idea. It was like the ultimate, dying ripple from some far-off shock to his consciousness. The impact died almost as it reached him--a flash, vaguely stimulating to his imagination, and then it was gone, its mysterious message uncomprehended.

She watched him a little impatiently, seeming to resent his scrutiny. Noticing this, he summoned his distracted attention and seated himself at the table. But, from time to time, now, his glance darted to her cheek surreptitiously, searching for the lost clue. He had learned the value of such subtle intuitions and would not give up his efforts to take advantage of this one.

She laid her bare hand upon the black velvet cushion beneath the light, saying, "I'm sorry that something has disturbed you." She looked at him, and then away.

"Why, nothing has disturbed me," he said. "Why should you think so?" Even as he pulled himself together for this denial her quick perception gave him another cause for wonder.

"I'm rather sensitive to other people's moods sometimes. That's one reason why I came. I didn't know but you might tell me something about it--how far to trust it, perhaps--though I came, I confess, more from curiosity."

Her air was still so detached that her conversational approaches seemed almost experimental. She spoke with pauses between her phrases, while her eyes, now showing full and clear gray, lit upon him only to rove off, returned and departed again, but never rapidly, as if she sought for her words here and there in the room, and brought them calmly back to him. She did not shun a direct gaze, but her look wandered as her thought wandered in its logical course, for the time seeming to forget his presence.

He took her hand and felt of it, testing its quality and texture, preparing himself for his speech. Her hand was long and slim, with scarcely a fiber more flesh upon the bones than was necessary to cover them admirably. He had no thought at first except to give his ordinary routine of reading, but his study of her showed her to be an exceptional character. She was beautiful, with the loveliness of an aristocratic and slightly bewildering spiritual type. Her hand in his was magnetic, delicious of contact, subtly alive even though not consciously responsive. Other women with more obvious charm had left him cold. She, aided by no suggestion of coquetry or complaisance, allured him. She awakened in him a desire not wholly physical, although he could not fail to regard her primarily in the sex relation that, so far, had been his chief interest in women. She, as a woman, answered, in some secret way, him, as a man. This was his first wave of feeling. Her hint amused him, true as her intuition had been; she had stumbled upon his embarrassment, no doubt, and had claimed prescience, a common enough form of feminine conceit. There he had a valuable suggestion as to the direction of her line of least resistance to his wiles.

Following upon this, as the first feeling of her unreality faded, upon contact, came the thought of her as a wealthy and credulous girl, who might minister to his ambitions. He was without real social aspirations, except in so far as his success in the fashionable world favored the game he was playing. Years of contact with credulity and hypocrisy had carried him, mentally, too far to value the lionizing and the hero-worship he had tasted from his smarter clients. But the patronage of such a fair and finished creature as this girl, especially if he could establish a more intimate relation, might secure the permanence of his position and his opportunities. He saw vistas of delight and satisfaction in such an acquaintance. He had had his fill of silly women whose favors were paid for in ministrations to their vanity. Such tribute, easy as it was for him with his facility, irked him. Here, perhaps, was one who might hold his interest by her fineness and her mentality, and by the very difficulty he might find in impressing her. There would be zest to the pursuit.

Beneath these waves of feeling, however, and beneath his active intelligence, there was an inchoate disturbance in some subconscious stratum of his mind. He felt it only as the slight mental perplexity the mole upon her cheek had caused; he had no time, now, to pursue that incipient idea. His impression of her as a desirable, pleasurable quarry incited him to devise the psychological method necessary for her capture. He knew to a hair, usually, what he could do with women; but now he was forced to gain time by a preamble in the conventional patter of the palmist's cult.

Her hand, it appeared, was of a mixed type, neither square nor conic, with long fingers, inclined to be psychic. He remarked the extraordinary sensitiveness denoted by their cushioned tips. Nails, healthy and oval; knuckles indicating a good sense of order in mental and physical life. She was, in short, of strong, vigorous mentality, well-balanced, artistic, generous, liberal; but (he referred to the Mount of Jupiter) with a tendency to be a looker-on rather than a sharer in the ordinary social pleasures of life. Saturn, developed more toward the finger, gave her a slightly melancholy temperament; Apollo showed a great appreciation of the beautiful in nature, with no little critical knowledge of art; Mercury was less developed, and implied a lack of humor; Venus betrayed a well-controlled but warm feeling; it was soft--she was, consequently, easily moved. Her thumb was wilful rather than logical, her fingers suggested respectively, pride, perception, self-respect, morbidity, love of the beautiful as distinguished from the ornamental, tact.

He had thrown himself into a pose so habitual as to become almost unconscious, though it was keyed to the theatrical pitch of his picturesque appearance and surroundings. The girl's expression showed, to his alert eye, a slight disappointment at the conventionality of his remarks. This spurred him to more originality and definiteness. He tossed his hair back with one hand in a quick gesture and turned to the lines in her palm, examining them first with a magnifying glass and then tracing them with an ivory stylus. Her eyes were fixed upon his, as if she were more interested in the manner than the matter of his task.

"You are the sort of person," he said, "who is, in a certain sense, egoistic. That is, after a criticism of any one, you would immediately ask yourself, 'Would I not have done the same thing, under the same circumstances?' You're stupendously frank--you'd own up to anything, any faults you thought you possessed; you'd even exaggerate a jestingly ignoble confession of motives because you hate hypocrisy so much in others. You are eminently fair and just, as you are generous. You have none of the ordinary feminine arts of coquetry. If you liked a man you would say so frankly."

It was typical of Granthope's enthusiasm for his game that he dared thus play it so boldly with his cards face up upon the table. His visitor began to show more interest; it was evident that she appreciated the ingeniousness of his phrasing. Her lip curved into a dainty smile. Her eyes gleamed slyly, then withdrew their fire.

He continued: "You are slow in action, but when the time comes, you can act swiftly without regard of the consequences. You are not prudish. You are willing to look upon anything that can be regarded as evidence as to the facts of life, even though you may not care to go into things purely for the sake of experience. You are faithful and loyal, but you are not of the type that believes 'the king can do no wrong'--you see your friends' faults and love them in spite of those faults, yet you are absolutely indifferent to most persons who make no special appeal. You are lazy, but physically, not mentally--there is no effort you will spare yourself to think things out and get to the final solution of a psychological or moral problem. You love modernness, complexity of living, the wonderful adjustments that money and culture effect, but not enough to endure the conventionality that sort of life demands. You are not particularly economical--you'd never go all over your town for a bargain or to 'pick up' antiques--you would prefer to go to a good shop and pay a fair price. You are fond of children--not of all children, however, only bright and interesting ones. You are fond of dress in a sensuous sort of way; that is, you like silk stockings, because they feel cool and smooth; silk skirts, because they fall gracefully and make a pleasant swish against your heels; furs, on account of the color and softness, but none of these merely because of their richness or splendor."

His face was intent, almost scowling, two vertical lines persisting between his brows; his mouth was fixed. His concentration seemed to hold no personal element; there was nothing to resent in the contact of his fingers or the absorption of his gaze. Suddenly, however, he looked up and smiled--he knew how to smile, did Granthope--and the relation between them became so personal and intimate that she involuntarily drew away her hand. He was instantly sensitive to this and by his attitude reassured her. Not, however, before she had blushed furiously, in spite of evident efforts to control herself.

His eyes glanced again at the mole on her cheek. Then, as if electrified by the sudden kindling and intensification of her personality, his subconscious mind finished its work without the aid of reason. As a bubble might separate itself from the bottom of the sea and ascend, quivering, to the surface, his memory unloosed its secret, and it rose, to break in his mind. The mole--_he had seen it before_--where? Like a tiny explosion the answer came--_upon the cheek of the little girl who visited them that day_, twenty-three years ago, at Madam Grant's--the day she died. It reached him with the certainty of truth. It did not even occur to him to doubt its verity. In a flash, he saw what sensational use he could make of the intelligence. Another idea followed it--an old trick--perhaps it would work again.

"Would you mind taking off that ring?" he asked.

She drew off a simple gold band set with three turquoises. He laid it upon the cushion, turning it between his fingers as he did so. In a single glance he had read the inscription engraved inside. His ruse was undetected; her eyes had roved about the room. He turned to her again.

"You are twenty-seven years old. You have a lover, or, rather, a man is making love to you. I do not advise you to marry him. You have traveled a good deal and will take another journey within a year. Something is happening in connection with a male relative that worries you. It will not be settled for some time. Are there any questions you would like to ask?"

"I think you have answered them already," she replied.

He leaned back, to shake his hands and pass them across his forehead, theatrically. Another bubble had broken in his consciousness. "Oliver Payson!"--the name came sharply to his inner ear like a voice in a telephone. Oliver Payson--he recalled now where he had seen the name--_upon the newspaper cut pinned to the door of Madam Grant's bedroom_. Like two drops of quicksilver combining, this thought fused with that suggested by the mole on the girl's cheek. "Clytie Payson"--this name came to him, springing unconjured to his mind. He determined to hazard a test of the inspiration. He simulated the typical symptoms of obsession, trembled, shuddered and writhed in the professional manner. Then he said:

"Would you like a clairvoyant reading? I think I might get something interesting, for I feel your magnetism very strongly."

She assented with an alacrity she had not shown before. Her eyes opened wider, she threw off her lassitude, awakening to a mild excitement.

"Let me take your hands again--both of them. This is something I don't often do, but I'll see what I can get."

He shut his eyes and spoke monotonously:

"I see a name--C, l, y--"

The girl's hands gave an involuntary convulsion.

"--t, i, e. Is that it? Clytie! Wait--I get the name--"

Beneath slightly trembling lids, a fine, sharp glance shot out at her and was withdrawn again. It was as if he had stolen something from her.

"Payson!"

The girl withdrew her hands suddenly; she drew in her breath swiftly, paling a little.

"That's my name, Clytie Payson! It's wonderful! Go on, please!"

She gave him her gracilent, dewy hands again, and he thrilled to their provocative spell. He took advantage of her distraction to enjoy them lightly. When he spoke there was no hesitation in his voice.

"I don't understand this! I don't know who these people are, or where they are, and it seems ridiculous to tell it. But there is a fearfully disordered room with the sun coming in through dirty, broken windows. The floor is covered with rubbish, there's no furniture but a few old boxes. I see two women and a little girl. They are in old-fashioned costumes."

Clytie's face was pale, now, and she watched him breathlessly.

"One of the women has white hair and vivid black eyebrows. She talks wildly sometimes; sometimes she's quite calm. The other woman is middle-aged and has a soft voice. The little girl is dressed in blue; she is sitting on a box listening. The crazy woman is kissing her."

He shook himself, shuddered and opened his eyes, to find Miss Payson gazing upon him, her hand to her heart.

"It's strange!" she said.

"It sounds nonsensical, I suppose," he said, "but that's just what I get. Can you make anything of it?"'

"It's all true!" said Clytie. "That very thing happened to me when I was a little girl--so long ago, that I had almost forgotten it."

"You remember it, then?"

"Yes, it all comes back to me--though I have wondered vaguely about it often enough. It was when I was four years old and I went with my mother to call on this strange, crazy woman--if she were crazy! I never knew. I never dared speak to father about it. He never knew that we went, I think. I had an idea that he wouldn't have liked it, had he known."

"And your mother?"

"She died--the same year, I think. We left San Francisco, father and I, soon after, and we lived abroad for several years. I didn't even remember the scene until long afterward, when something brought it up. Then it was like a dream or a vision."

"Do you know, Miss Payson, I feel that you have very strong mediumistic powers; I can feel your magnetism. I think that you might develop yourself so as to be able to use your psychic force."

She took it seriously.

"Yes, I think I do have a certain amount of capacity that way. I can never depend upon it, though, but my intuitions are very strong and occasionally rather strange things have happened to me."

It amused him to see how quickly she had fallen into the trap he had set for her. Experience had taught him it was a common enough assertion for women to make, and he was cynically incredulous. He was a little disappointed, too; as, in his opinion, it discounted her intelligence. Nevertheless, he found in it a way to manipulate her.

"Perhaps I might help you to develop it," he suggested, "although I'm not much of a clairvoyant myself; I claim only to be a scientific palmist."

"I think you are wonderful," Clytie asserted, giving him a glance of frank admiration. "This test alone would prove it. You see, having some slight power myself, I'm more ready to believe that others have it."

He waived her compliment with apparent modesty.

"Women are more apt to be gifted that way--it isn't often I attempt a psychic reading. What is written in the palm I can read; as a physician diagnoses a case from symptoms in the pulse and tongue and temperature, so I read a person's character from what I see in the hand. I have been particularly interested in yours, Miss Payson, and perhaps I have been able to give you more than usual. I hope I may have the opportunity of seeing you again; I'm quite sure I can help you, or put you in the way of assistance."

She arose and slowly drew on her gloves, her mind full of the revelation. He watched every motion with delight. Her brief mood of irradiation had given place to her customary languor, and her fragile loveliness, emphasizing the opposite to every one of his virile, ardent traits, allured him with the appeal of one extreme to another. Most of all, her mouth, wayward with its ravishing smile, enchanted him. It was controlled by no coquetry, he knew, and it moved him the more for that reason. Yet she seemed loath to go and moved slowly about the room. She stopped to point with a sweeping gesture at one side of the velvet-hung wall.

"It's rather too bad to hide the windows, isn't it?"

He smiled at her divination, doubtful of its origin.

"You have a very good sense of direction, haven't you?"

She appeared to notice his incredulity, but not to resent it.

"Indeed, I have very little," she said; then, giving him her hand with a quick impulse of cordiality, she smiled, nodded and turned to the anteroom.

He glanced at the table, saw her ring, and made a motion toward it. Then it occurred to him that it might be used as an excuse for seeing her again and he followed her out.

In the reception-room, Fancy was yawning; seeing them, she brought her hand quickly to her mouth and raised her eyebrows at Granthope. He made no sign in reply. Clytie walked up to her impulsively and held out her hand.

"I do hope I'll see you again, sometime," she said.

Fancy laughed. "I do, too. You're the only one who's ever really appreciated me. You make me almost wish I was a lady." By her tone, there was some old wound that bled.

"You're that, and better, I'm sure," Clytie answered softly; "you're yourself!"

She turned to leave. Granthope, who had watched the two women, amused, opened the door for her, received her long, steady glance, her quiet, low "Good morning," and bowed her out.

As soon as she had fairly left, he turned quickly to Fancy. "Where's Philip?"

"In the back room, I suppose." Fancy looked surprised.

"Go and get him, please; tell him to find out where this girl lives, and all he can about her."

"Say, Frank--" Fancy began, rising.

"Hurry, please! I don't want him to miss her. She's a good thing!"

"She's _too_ good, Frank, that's just it!"

"That's why I want her. I don't catch one like that every day. Why, she's worth all the rest put together." He looked impatiently at her.

Fancy shrugged her shoulders and sailed airily out of the room.

Granthope stood for some time, his hands thrust into the pockets of his velvet coat, gazing abstractedly at the red wall of his reception-room. Then he took up the telephone and called for Madam Spoll's number.

He made himself known and then said, "I'll be round to-night before your seance. I want to talk something over."

*CHAPTER III*

*THE SPIDER'S NEST*

The architecture of San Francisco was, in early days, simple and unpretentious, befitting the modest aspirations of a trading and mining town. Builders accepted their constructive limitations and did their honest best. False fronts, indeed, there were, making one-story houses appear to be two stories high, but redwood made no attempts in those days to masquerade as marble or granite.

During the sixties, a few French architects imported a taste for classic art, and for a time, within demure limits, their exotic taste prevailed. The simple, flat, front wall of houses, now grown to three honest stories high, they embellished with dentil cornice, egg-and-dart moldings and chaste consoles; they added to the second story a little Greek portico with Corinthian columns accurately designed, led up to by a flight of wooden steps; the facade was broken by a single bay-window, ornamented with conventional severity. Block after block of such dwelling-houses were built. They had a sort of restful regularity, they broke no artistic hearts.

In later days, when San Francisco had begun to take its place in the world, a greater degree of sophistication ensued. Capitals of columns became more fanciful, ornament more grotesquely original, till ambitious turners and wood-carvers gave full play to their morbific imagination. Then was the day of scrolls and finials, bosses, rosettes, brackets, grille-work and comic balusters. Conical towers became the rage, wild windows, odd porches and decorations nailed on, regardless of design, made San Francisco's nightmare architecture the jest of tourists. Lastly, after an interregnum of Queen Anne vagaries, came the Renaissance and the Age of Stone, heralded by concrete imitations and plaster walls of bogus granite.

Madam Spoll's house was of that commonplace, anemically classic style which, after all, was then the least offensive type of residence. It was painted appropriately in lead color--for the house, with the rest of the block, seemed to have been cast in a mold--a tone which did its best to make Eddy Street prosaic. It had been long abandoned by fashion and was now hardly on speaking terms with respectability. It occupied a place in a row of boarding-houses, cheap millinery establishments and unpretentious domiciles. There was a dreary little unkempt yard in front, with a passage leading to an entrance under the front steps; above, the sign "Madam Spoll, Clairvoyant and Medium," was displayed on ground glass, and below, hanging on a nail against the wall, was a transparency. When the lamp was lighted inside this, one read the words: "Circle To-night. Admittance ten cents."

This Thursday the lamp was lighted. It was half-past seven o'clock.

Devotees had begun to arrive, and, entering by the lower door, they paid their dimes to Mr. Spoll, who stood beside the little table at the entrance, left their "tests"--envelopes, flowers, jewelry or what not--and passed into the audience-room.

This had once been a dining-room and its walls were covered with a figured paper, above which was a bright red border decorated with Japanese fans and parasols. A few gaudy paper lanterns hung from the ceiling, and here and there were hung framed mottoes: "There Is No Death"--"We Shall Meet Again"--"There Is a Land that is Fairer than Day." This room was filled with chairs set in rows, and would hold some forty or fifty persons. It was separated by an arch from a smaller room beyond, where, upon a platform, stood a table with an open Bible, an organ, two chairs and a folding screen.

Only the front seats were at present occupied, these by habitues of the place, all firm believers, a picturesque group showing at a glance the stigmata of eccentricity or mental aberration. For the most part they were women in black; they bowed to one another as they sat down, then waited in stolid patience for the seance to open. The others were pale, blue-eyed men with drooping mustaches and carefully parted hair, and a whiskered, bald-headed old gentleman or two who sat in silence. The room was dimly illuminated by side lights.

Farther down the hallway, opposite the foot of a flight of stairs leading upward to her living-rooms, was Madam Spoll's "study," and here she was, this evening, preparing for business.

This room was small and crowded with furniture. The marble mantel held an assortment of bisque bric-a-brac, sea-shells, paper knives and cheap curiosities. The walls were covered with photographs, a placque or two, fans and picture cards. A huge folding bed, foolishly imitating a mirrored sideboard, occupied one corner of the room. A couch covered with fancy cushions and tidies ran beside it. A table, heavily draped, a three-legged tea-stand, an easel with a satin sash bearing the portrait, photographically enlarged in crayon, of a bold, smirking, overdressed little girl, a ragged trunk and several plush-covered chairs were huddled, higgledy-piggledy, along the other side of the room.

Upon the couch Madam Spoll sat, spraying envelopes with alcohol from an atomizer on a small bamboo stand before her.

She was an enormous woman of masculine type, with short, briskly curling, iron-gray hair and a triple chin. Heavy eyebrows, heavy lips, heavy ears and cheeks had Madam Spoll, but her forehead was unlined with wrinkles; her expression was serene, and, when she smiled, engaging and conciliating. She was dressed in black satin with wing-like sleeves, the front of her waist being covered with a triangular decoration of bead-work.

Watching her with roving, black eyes was Professor Vixley, smoking a vile cigar. His face was sallow, of a predatory mold with a pointed, mangy beard, and sharp, yellow teeth. He wore a soft, striped flannel shirt with a flowing pink tie. From the sleeves of his shiny, cutaway coat, faded to a purplish hue, his thin, tanned, muscular hands showed like the claws of a vulture.

"You seem to be doin' a pretty good business," he remarked, dropping his ashes carelessly upon the floor.

"So-so," Madam Spoll answered. "If things go well we hope to get a new hall up on Post Street, but there ain't nothing in tests. Straight clairvoyance is the future of _this_ business. Of course, we have to give cheap circles to draw the crowd, but it's a lot of bother and expense and it does tire me all out. Then there's always the trouble from the newspapers likely to come up."

"Pshaw! I wouldn't mind gettin' into the newspapers occasionally, it's good advertisin'. The more you're exposed the better you get along, I believe."

"'Lay low and set on your eggs' is my motto," said the Madam. "I don't like too much talk. I prefer to work in the dark--there's more money in it in the long run. I don't care if I only have a few customers; if they're good and easy I can make all I want."

"What do you bother with sealed messages for, Gert?" Professor Vixley asked.

"Oh, I got to fix a lot of skeptics to-night. I can usually open the ballots right on the table easy enough behind the flowers, but I want to read a few sealed messages besides. It may help along with Payson, too." She took up an envelope numbered "275." It was saturated with alcohol. She held it to the light, and squinting at the transparent paper, she read: "'When is Susie coming home?' Now, ain't that a fool question? I'll take a rise out of _her_, see if I don't! That's that woman who got into trouble in that poisoning case."

"Say, the alcohol trick's a pretty good stunt when you get a chance to use it! But I don't have time for it in my business."

"Yes, it's easy enough if you use good, grain alcohol, but I wish I had an egg-tester. They save a lot of time, and you can read through four or five thicknesses of paper with 'em. Spoll, he has plenty of chance to hold out the ballots and bring 'em in to me; his coming and going ain't noticed, because he has to fetch 'em up to the table, anyway. By the time I go on, all the smell's faded out. If it ain't, my handkerchief is so full of perfumery that you can't notice anything else. I'm going to fit up my table with one o' them glass plates with an electric flash-light underneath that I can turn on with a switch. You can read right through the envelope then. But I don't often consent to tests like that. It deteriorates your powers. And my regular customers are usually contented to send their ballots up open and glad of the chance to get an answer. _They_ don't want to give the spirits no trouble! Lord, I wish I had the power I had when I begun." She smiled pleasantly at her companion.

"I see old Mrs. Purinton on the front row as I come in," Vixley observed, shifting his cigar labially from one corner of his mouth to the other.

"Say, there's a grafter for fair!" she exclaimed. "She's been coming here to the publics for two years and never once has she gave me a private setting. That's what I call close. She's as near as matches! And always the same old song--little Willie's croup or when's Henry going to write, and woozly rubbish like that. I got a good mind to hand her a dig. I could make a laughing-stock out of her, and scare her away easy. Folks do like a laugh at a public seance; you know that, Professor."

"Sure! It don't do no harm as long as you hit the right one."

"Oh, I ain't out for nothing but paper-sports and grafters. I know a good thing when I see it. I hope there'll be something doing worth while in this Payson business. He may show up to-night. Lulu claims she conned him good."

"I hope I'll have a slice off him," said Professor Vixley, his beady, black eyes shining. "We got to get up a new game for him before we pass him down the line."

"Oh, if anybody can I guess we can; there's more'n one way to kill a cat, besides a-kissing of it to death."

"Yes, smotherin' it in hot air, for instance!" Vixley grinned.