Chapter III: Part 3

"They's one thing I wish," said Madam Spoll, "and that is that we had a regular blue-book like they have in the East. Why, they tell me there's six thousand names printed for Boston alone. If we had some way of getting a lead with this Payson it would be lots easier. But I expect the San Francisco mediums will get better organized some day and cooeperate more shipshape."

Here Mr. Spoll entered, a tall, thin, bony, wild-eyed individual with a rolling pompadour of red hair, his face spattered with freckles. He walked on tiptoe, as if at a funeral, bowed to the Professor, coughed into his hand, and took up the letters Madam Spoll had been investigating, putting down some new ones.

"Oh, here's that 'S.F.B.' that Ringa told me about," she said, glancing at an envelope. "Is Ringa come in yet?"

"I ain't seen him; but it's early," said Spoll. "He'll show up all right. I'll send him right in."

"Is Mr. Perry in front?"

"You bet!" Spoll was still tiptoeing about the room on some mysterious errand. "Perry ain't likely to lose a chance to make a dollar, not him!"

"He's a good one!" Madam Spoll smiled at the Professor. "I don't hardly know what I'd do without him. I can always depend upon him to make good. He ain't too willing, and sometimes, I declare, he almost fools me, even. I've known him to stand up and denounce me something fierce, especially when there was newspaper men in the audience, and then just gradually calm down and admit everything I wanted him to. He looks the part, too. Why, I sent him round to Mrs. Stepson's circle one night, when she first come to town, and she was fooled good. I've seen him cry at a materializing seance so hard it would almost break your heart."

"Does he play spook?"

"No, he's best in the audience. He's a good capper, but I don't believe he could play spook--besides, he's getting too fleshy."

"Who else have you got regular?" asked Professor Vixley.

"Only two or three. I don't need so many touts as most. I pride myself on doing my own work without much help. Of course, you got to give a name sometimes when a fishing test won't work, and a friend in the audience helps. Miss French, she's pretty good, but she's tricky. I'm afraid of her. I was gave away once to the _Chronicle_ and I lost a whole lot of business. Men are safer. Harry Debert is straight enough, but he's stupid. He's the too-willing kind, and you don't have a chance to get any effect.

"Say, Spoll," she added to her husband, "be sure and don't take no combs nor gloves! I ain't going to do no diagnosing in public--not for ten cents. Them that want it can pay for it and take a private setting."

"They're mostly flowers to-night," said Spoll as he crept out of the room.

"Lord, I do hate a flower test!" she groaned. "It's too hard work. Of course, they're apt to bring roses if their name's Rose, or lilies and daisies the same way, but you can't never be sure, and you have to fish. Lockets is what I like, lockets and ballots."

At this moment Mr. Ringa entered. He was a bleached, tow-headed youth, long and lanky, with mild gray eyes and a stubbly, straw-colored mustache. Two front teeth were missing from his upper jaw. His clothes seemed to have shrunk and tightened upon his frame. He bowed respectfully to Madam Spoll and Professor Vixley, who represented to him the top of the profession.

"Did you get that 'S.F.B.' letter, all right?" he asked.

"Yes, what about it?"

"She's easy!"

Vixley grinned. "If she's easy for you she must be a cinch for us!"

Ringa persevered. "Well, I got the dope, anyway. She's a Mrs. Brindon and she's worried about her husband--he's gone dotty on some fluzie up North. I read her hand last week. I told her they was trouble coming to her along of a dark woman--she's one of these beer-haired blondes--what I call a Wuerzburger blonde--then I showed it to her in the heart-streak. 'Go ahead and tell me how it will come out,' she says. I says: 'There's a peculiar condition in your hand that I ain't quite on to,' I says. She says: 'Why, can't you read it?' Says I: 'Madam, if I could read that well, I wouldn't be doing palms for no two bits a shot; I'd be where Granthope is, with a fly-away studio and crowding it at five plunks, per.' Then I says: 'Say, I hear Madam Spoll has great gifts in predicting at all affairs of the heart. I ain't never been to any of her circles, but why don't you shoot around next Thursday night and try her out?' 'What'll I do?' she says. Then I told her to write on a paper, 'Does he care more for Mae Phillips than he does for me, and how will it come out?' She done it and sealed it up into an envelope I give her."

"Good work!" said Madam Spoll. "I'll give you a rake-off if I land her. I've got her ballot right here. I won't need to open it."

"Ain't that job worth a dollar to you as it stands?" Ringa asked nervously. "I'll call it square and take my chances on the percentage."

"All right. It's a good sporting chance! Only I wish it was a man. Women are too close." Madam Spoll opened her purse and paid him.

As Ringa left, Vixley asked: "By the way, how about this fellow Payson? Do you think Lulu roped him?"

"I guess so. Lulu's done pretty well lately, and she's brought me considerable business. She ought to be here by this time."

"I should think she'd be able to handle him alone."

"Don't you go and tell her so! The thing for her to do is to get a manager, but I don't intend to queer my own game."

"What line is she workin' now? She's failed at about everything ever since she begun with cards."

"Oh, she's doing the 'Egyptian egg' reading. Wouldn't that freeze you? Lord, that was out of date twenty years go; but everything goes in San Francisco."

"Say, ain't this town the penultimate limit!" Vixley ejaculated, grinning. "Why, the dopes will stand in line all night for a chance to be trimmed, and send their money by express, prepaid, if you let 'em. Gert, sometimes I'm ashamed of myself for keepin' 'em waitin' so long! Talk about takin' a gumdrop away from a sick baby; that's hard labor to what we did for Bennett. What I want to know is, how do these damn fools ever get all the money we take away from 'em? It don't look like they had sense enough to cash a check."

"If I had one or two more decoys as good as Ringa and Lulu Ellis, I'd be fixed all right. I could stake out all the dopes in town. Say, Granthope could cut up a lot of easy cash if he'd agree to stand in. I tried to tap him about this here Payson, and he wouldn't give me a tip."

"Perhaps he didn't know anything. You can't loosen up when you're wide open, can you?"

"He generally knows all there is to know. The trouble is he's getting too high-toned. Since he fitted up his new studio and butted into society you can't get near him with nothing like a business proposition. I believe he thinks he's too good for this place and will go East. He's a nice boy, though. I ain't got nothing against him, only I wish he'd help us out. Hello, here's Lulu. Good evening, Lulu, how's Egyptian eggs to-day?"

Lulu Ellis was a dumpy, roly-poly, soft-eyed, soft-haired, pink-cheeked young woman, as innocent appearing a person as ever lived on her wits. Not that she had many of them, but a limited sagacity is enough to dupe victims as willing to be cajoled as those who appeal to the Egyptian egg for a sign of the future. Lulu's large, brown eyes were enough to distract one's attention from her rule-of-thumb methods. Her fat little hand was soft and white, her plump little body full of extravagant curves.

"Say, Mr. Payson has come!" she exclaimed immediately, with considerable excitement. "He's on the third row at the far end."

Madam Spoll became alert. "Did you see his test?"

"No, he was here when I come," Lulu replied.

"Go out and get Spoll." Madam Spoll spoke sharply. "We've got to fix this thing up right now."

Lulu returned to say: "There's such a crowd coming in he can't leave, but he says it was a gold watch with a seal fob."

"All right, so far," said the Madam. "Now, Lulu, are you sure of what you told me?"

Lulu's reply was interrupted by the entrance of Francis Granthope, in opera hat and Inverness cape, making a vivid contrast to the disreputable aspect of Professor Vixley. He greeted the three conspirators with his customary elegance.

"I'm sorry I had nothing about Payson when you rang me up, Madam Spoll, but just afterward his daughter came in for a reading. Queer, wasn't it?"

"God, that's a stroke of luck!" said Vixley eagerly. "I say, Frank, you can work her while we handle the old man, and we'll clean up a fortune. They say he's a millionaire." Vixley's little eyes gleamed.

"Let's hear what Lulu has to say, first," said Madam Spoll.

"Why, I didn't get much," Lulu confessed. "He said he dropped in by accident as he was passing by, to see what Egyptian egg astrology was. I got his name off of some letters he had in his overcoat pocket. I made him hang it on the hall hat-rack. I did all I could for him----"

"Did he get gay with you?" Professor Vixley interrupted. He had been overtly enjoying Lulu's plump charms with his rapacious eyes.

Granthope smiled; Lulu Ellis colored slightly.

"No, he didn't! I don't do none of that kind of work!"

"The more fool you!" Madam Spoll retorted. "He's an old man, ain't he?"

"Sixty," said Vixley, "I looked him up."

"Then he ought to be easy as chewing gum," said Madam Spoll.

Granthope lighted a cigarette and listened with a mildly cynical expression.

"He ain't that kind, though," Lulu insisted. "I ain't altogether a fool, after all. Why, he don't even go to church!"

Her three auditors laughed aloud, the Professor raucously, Madam Spoll with a bubbling chuckle, Granthope with scarcely more than an audible smile.

"That settles it, then. You're coming on, Lulu! What else do you know?" said Madam Spoll.

"Well, he has a daughter----"

"Yes, Granthope knows all about that," from the Madam.

"Her name is Clytie," said Granthope. "Twenty-seven."

"Is she a looker?" asked Vixley.

Granthope turned to him and gave him a patronizing glance. "_You_ wouldn't think so, Professor. She's hardly your style. But she's good enough for me!" He languidly flipped the ash from his cigarette and took his pose again.

Lulu went on: "I think he had a love affair before he was married, but I couldn't quite get it. I didn't dare to fish very much. And that's about all I got."

"That's plenty, Lulu. You can go now. Here's a dollar for you and much obliged for passing him up."

"Oh, thank you," said Lulu. "I'm afraid it ain't worth that much. He gave me a dollar himself, though I don't charge but four bits, usually."

"Lord, what a fool!" said Vixley, watching her go out. "That girl won't ever get nowhere, she's too innocent. She knows no more about real life than a boiled egg."

"She's all right for me, though," Madam Spoll replied. "That's just the kind I need in my business. She fools 'em every time. They ain't nothing like a good blusher for a stool-pigeon, you take my word for it. Lulu's all right in her place." She turned to wash her hands at a bowl in the corner.

"Well," said Vixley, crossing his legs, "are you coming in with us, Frank?"

"It looks pretty good to me, so far. But it depends. What have you got about Payson, anyway?" Granthope's tone was languid.

Madam Spoll winked at Vixley, as she wiped her hands behind the palmist's back.

"Why," Vixley replied, "Payson's in wool and is director of a bank, besides. He's a square-head with a high forehead, and them are easy. Gertie, here, can get him into a private sittin', and when she does, you leave him to her--she'll find a way all right. She don't do no lumpy work, Gertie don't, you know that, all right! When she passes him along to me, I'll manage him like the way we worked Bennett with the real estate. I'd like another chance as good as him."

"You just wait," said Madam Spoll. "I got a hunch that this Payson is going to be pretty good pie; and we got a good strong combination, Frank, if you want to do your share."

"It's a pity Spoll ain't got some of Gertie's gumption," said Vixley, smiling with approval at his partner.

"Don't you make no mistake about Spoll--he's done some good work on Payson already." The Madam was adjusting her waist before the glass and coquetting with her hair. "The trouble with you, Vixley, is that you ain't got no executive ability--I'm going to organize this game myself. I can see a way to use Spoll and Ringa, and Flora, too. We want to go into this thing big. Payson's a keener bird than Bennett was, but they's more in him."

"So Spoll has begun, has he?" Granthope asked.

"Yes. He located the Paysons over on North Beach."

"I know that much already. The mother's dead. Mr. and Miss Payson have traveled abroad. What else do you know about her?"

"Why, it seems she's the sole heir. Good news for you, eh? High society, too--Flower Mission, Kitchen Garden, Friday Cotillions, Burlingame, everything. She could help you, Frank, if you got on the right side of her."

Here Mr. Spoll tiptoed in, bowed to Granthope, and said:

"Eight o'clock, Gertie."

Madam Spoll arose cumbrously, took a last peep in the mirror of the folding bed and turned into the hall, saying, "You take my advice, Frank. We depend upon you. See what you can do with the girl." She paused to bend a keen glance upon him. "What did you do with her, anyway?"

"Why, I did happen on something," he answered. "Do you remember Madam Grant, who used to live down on Fifth Street, twenty-odd years ago?"

Madam Spoll came back into the room eagerly.

"The crazy woman who lived so queer and yet had lots of money? Yes! She did clairvoyance, didn't she? I remember. She had a kid with her, too. Let's see--he ran away with the money, didn't he? And nobody ever knew what become of him. What about her?"

There was a duel of astute glances between them. Granthope had his own reasons for not wanting to say too much. He guarded his secret carefully, as he had guarded it from her for years.

"Miss Payson used to go down to see Madam Grant with her mother, when she was a little girl."

"No! _did_ she, though? With her mother? That's queer! Hold on, Vixley. What did Lulu say about a love affair before Payson was married? Do you get that? Here's his wife visiting Madam Grant; you remember her, don't you? There's something in that I believe we got a good starter already."

Spoll appeared again, anxiously beckoning, and she went with him down the hall.

Vixley took up the scent. "Say, Frank," he asked, "how did you happen to get on to that, anyway? That was slick work."

Granthope turned to him and replied patronizingly, "Oh, I ought to know something about women by this time. I got her to talking."

Vixley frowned, intent in thought, stroking his scant, pointed beard and biting his mustache; then he slapped his knee with his claw-like hand. "Say, you got a grand chance there," he exclaimed. "See here, you can get in with the swells and be in a position to help out lots. It's the chance of a lifetime, and we'll make it worth your while."

"How?" Granthope inquired contemptuously.

"By a fair exchange of information. You put us wise, and we'll put you wise. I'll trust you to find ways of using what help we give you." He cackled.

"Yes--you can trust me. I think I might have some fun out of it. I don't mind helping you out, but all I need myself is a little imagination, some common-sense and a frock coat."

Vixley looked at him admiringly. "I wish't I had your chance, Frank; that's what I do. Say, you just light 'em and throw 'em away, don't you! I s'pose if I had your looks I could do it myself."

Granthope looked him over calmly. "There's no knowing what a bath and a manicure and a suit of clothes would do for you, Professor."

"You can't make brains out o' soap," retorted the medium.

"And you can't make money out of dirt.

"We'll see who has the money six months from now."

"It's a fair enough bargain. I take the girl, you take the money. I'm satisfied." Granthope arose and yawned. "Oh," he added, "did you know Payson had a partner named Riley? He was drowned in seventy-seven."

"That's funny. Queer how things come our way! Mrs. Riley is here in the front room with a test. She was tried for the murder of one of her husbands. Gert's goin' to shoot her up with it to-night. You better go in and see the fun. She'll give it to her good."

"I think I will," said the palmist.

He left Vixley plunged in thought, and walked out.

Turning into the audience-room he sat down on a chair in the rear. The place was almost filled. His eyes scanned the assembly carefully, roving from one spectator to another. On a side seat near him, a party of four, young girls and men, sat giggling and chewing gum. The rest of the company showed a placid vacancy of expression or lukewarm expectancy.

Madam Spoll at the organ and her husband with his violin, had, meanwhile, been playing a dreary piece of music, "to induce the proper conditions," as she had announced from the platform. They stopped, retarding a minor chord, and the medium went to the table and began to handle the tests, rearranging them, putting some aside, bringing others forward, in an abstracted manner. Then, looking up with a self-satisfied smile, she spoke:

"I want to say something to the new-comers and skeptics here to-night in explanation of these tests. Them who have thoroughly investigated the subject and are familiar with every phase of mediumship, understand, of course, that these objects are placed here merely to attract magnetism to the sitter and induce the proper conditions, so that your spirit friends will be able to communicate with you. This phase of mediumship is called psychometry, but if I'd stop to explain just what that means, I wouldn't have time to give any readings. Now, it won't be possible to get any messages unless you come here in the proper mood to receive them. You must send out your best thought and do all you can to assist, or else my guides won't be able to establish communication on the spirit plane. If you merely come here only to laugh and to make a scoff of the proceedings, I'll have to ask you to leave before I begin, for they's many here to-night who are honestly in search of the truth, seeking to communicate with the dear, loved ones beyond on the other side."

She passed her hand across her eyes, sighed, and fingered her chin nervously. She poked the articles on the table again.

"As I come on to this platform, I see an old man over there, in that direction, what you might call a middle-aged man, perhaps, of a medium height, and whiskers, like. I feel a condition of going on a journey, you might say, somewhere east of here, though maybe not very far, and I get the name John. The light goes over in your direction, lady, that one with the red hat. Yes, you. Would that be your father, possibly?"

The lady, straightening herself upon being thus addressed, said timidly, "I think perhaps you mean my uncle. His name was John."

"Maybe it is an uncle, though I get the influence of a father very strong, too. Has your father passed out?"

The lady in the red hat nodded.

"Then it _is_ your father, do you see? Yes, I get an uncle, too, who wishes to communicate, only his influence ain't strong enough. That shows it ain't mind reading, as the newspaper folks say, don't it?" She smiled, as if she had made a point, and the audience appeared to be impressed.

"About this journey, now: maybe you ain't had no idea of traveling, but John says you will. I don't think it's liable to be very far, though. It'll be before the last of September or the first of October and John says it'll be successful. Do you understand what I mean?"

The lady, frightened at the terrible import of this question, did not speak.

"Did you send up an article?"

"It's that purse with the chain."

Madam Spoll fingered it and weighed it reflectively.

"I get a condition of what you might call inharmony. Seems to me like in your home something is worrying you and you ain't satisfied, you understand, with the way things are going and sometimes you feel as if, well, you just couldn't stand it!" Her smile, now, bathed her dupe with sympathy.

The lady nodded vigorously, with tightly shut lips.

"You kind of wonder if it does any good for you to go to all the trouble you do to sacrifice yourself and try to do your duty, when it ain't what you might call appreciated. And you're worried about money, too. Ain't that so?"

She received a ready assent. The woman's eyes were fixed upon her. Every one in the room watched the stripping naked of a soul.

"Well, John says that your father and him are helping you all they can on the spirit plane, and he thinks conditions will be more favorable and will take a turn for the better by the first of the year."

A question fluttered on the woman's lips, but before it had time to escape, Madam Spoll suddenly turned in the other direction.

"While I was talking to that lady," she said, "I felt an influence leading me to that corner over there by the clock, and I get the initials 'S.F.B.' Is there anybody of that name over there?"

A flashily dressed woman, with tinted yellow hair and rhinestone ear-rings, raised her hand.

"Those are my initials," she announced.

Madam Spoll grew impressive. "Your name is Brindon, ain't it?"

The woman gasped out a "Yes."

"Did I ever see you before?"

"No," said the blonde, "not to my knowledge, you didn't."

Madam Spoll made a comprehensive gesture with both hands, calling attention to the miracle. "You sent up a sealed ballot, didn't you?"

The woman nodded. She was obviously excited, looking as if she feared her skeleton was to be dragged forth from its closet; as indeed it was.

Madam Spoll took up the envelope with her delicate thumb and forefinger and displayed it to the audience.

"You see, it's still sealed," she announced, then, shutting her eyes, she continued: "My guides tell me that he's what you might call infatuated, but he'll come back to you and say he's sorry. Do you understand that?"

The woman was now painfully embarrassed and shrank into her seat. The medium, however, did not spare her. It was too good a chance for a dramatic sensation. She tore the envelope open and read its contents boldly: "Does he care more for Mae Phillips than he does for me?" It was a psychological moment. The old women stared at Mrs. Brindon with morbid delight. There was a little buzzing of whispers through the room. Then the audience prepared itself for the next sensation.

The medium picked up another envelope. "This is marked '275,'" she said, then she clutched her throat. "Oh," she cried, "I'm strangling! They's somebody here who passed out very sudden, like they was poisoned. It's terrible. I can't answer the question the party has written because there's an evil influence here, a wicked woman. She had three husbands and two of 'em died suspicious. Her name is Riley. Would that be you?" She pointed forcefully at a dried-up, old woman in a shawl, with bleared eyes and a veined nose.

There was no response.

"Was this question something about your daughter?" Madam Spoll asked.

The woman coughed and bowed, shrinking into herself.

"I guess you better go somewhere else for your readings," Madam Spoll declared cruelly. "Your aura don't seem to me to be very harmonious. I don't know what's the matter to-night," she went on, passing her hand across her forehead in apparent distress. "The conditions around me are something horrid." Her voice rose. "There's somebody in this very room here who has committed murder. I can't do a thing until I get that off my mind. My guides tell me who it is, and that they'll be satisfied if he'll acknowledge it and say he's sorry. Otherwise, this seance can't go on."

She stopped and glared about the hall. By this time she had worked her audience up to an intense excitement. Every one looked at his neighbor, wondering what was to come, but no one offered to confess to a crime. Madam Spoll raged up and down the platform in a frenzy. Then she stopped like an elephant at bay.

"I know who this person is. It's a man, and if he don't rise and acknowledge it, I shall point him out!"

No one stirred. On the fourth seat, a clean-shaven man of thirty-five, with sharp, aquiline features and wide-spread ears, sat, transfixed with horror, his two hands clenched. It was Mr. Perry, the cleverest actor in the medium's support.

She advanced toward him as if drawn by a secret power, stared into his eyes, and putting her hand upon his shoulder, said:

"Thou art the man!"

Mr. Perry wriggled out of her grasp. "See here," he cried, "you mind your own business, will you. You're a fake! You got no right to make a fool of me." His voice trembled, his face was a convincing mask of guilt arraigned.

The medium shook a warning finger at him. "You either acknowledge what I say is true, or you leave the hall! I can't go on with you here."

Mr. Spoll came in to stand beside her valiantly; spectators stood up to watch the drama. Mr. Perry's eyes were wild, his face distorted; suddenly he arose and rushed out of the room. Madam Spoll snapped her fingers two or three times, shook herself and went back to the platform. The murmurs died down and the seance was resumed.

Madam Spoll waited a while in silence, then she picked up a gold watch with a seal fob from the table. "I'm glad to feel a more peaceful influence," she said. "I'm directed toward this watch. I don't know who brought it up, for I was out of the room at the time, but I get the name 'Oliver.'" She looked up expectantly.

A gentleman arose from an end seat in the third row. He had a high domed head, partly bald, and a gray chin-beard with a shaven upper lip; under shaggy overhanging eyebrows, cold gray eyes looked through a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. His air was benevolently judicial and bespoke culture and ease. He had, moreover, a well-marked presence, as of one used to being considered influential and prominent. A row of false teeth glittered when he opened his mouth.

"That's my name," he acknowledged in a deep, fluent voice that was heard all over the room, "and that is my watch."

Madam Spoll fixed him in the eye. "I'd like to know if I can't get your other name. My guides are very strong to-night." After a few moments of self-absorption, she smiled sweetly upon him. "I think I can get it clairaudiently. Would it be Pearson?"

"No, but that's pretty near it, though."

"It sounds like Pearson to me, Pearson. Payson, oh, yes, it's Payson, isn't it?"

"That's right," he said, and sat down.

"Did I ever see you before?"

"Not to my knowledge, Madam."

She looked triumphantly at her audience and smiled.

"If they's any skeptics here to-night, I hope they'll go away satisfied." A number of old ladies nodded emphatically. "Of course, newspaper men never come on a night like this, when my guides are strong. Funny what you see when you ain't got a gun, ain't it? The next time I'm half sick and tired out, they'll be plenty of them here to say I'm a fake, like our friend here who left so sudden, white as a sheet. Now, when I was directed to that watch, I was conscious of a spirit standing beside this gentleman," she pointed at him benevolently, "influencing me to take it up. It's a woman, and she must have been about thirty when she passed out, and remarkably handsome, too. She was sort of fair-complected, between dark and light. I get a feeling here in my throat and down here," she touched her breast, lightly, curving her arm gracefully inward, "as if she went out sudden, like, with heart disease. Do you know what I mean?"

Mr. Payson had bent forward now. "Yes," he said, "I think I do. Has she any message for me?"

"Yes, she has; but--well, you see, it ain't one I'd exactly care to give in public, and I don't think you'd want me to, either. If you come up after the seance is over, I'll see if I can get it for you. Or you might do still better to have a private setting and then I'll have time to tell you more. She brings me a condition of what you might call worry or anxiety, as if you had something on your mind."

She turned to a bunch of flowers, and, taking them up, smelled them thoughtfully, for a while. Mr. Payson settled back in his seat.

As the medium commenced again, Granthope arose with his faint, cynical smile and walked quietly out. He found Mr. Spoll at the table by the door.

"Well, I guess he's on the hook." The palmist buttoned his cape and lighted a cigarette.

"Trust Gertie for that," said Spoll; "she'll land him all right, see if she don't. Good night!"

Granthope turned up his collar and walked out into the street.

*CHAPTER IV*

*THE PAYSONS*

Mr. Oliver Payson lived on a half-deserted street on the northerly slope of Russian Hill, in a quarter of the town which, at one time, promised to become a favored, if not an aristocratic residential district. But the whim of fashion had fancied in succession Stockton Street, Rincon Hill, Van Ness Avenue, Nob Hill, and had now settled upon the Western Addition and the Presidio Heights. The old North Beach, with its wonderful water and mountain view, nearer the harbor and nearer the business part of the city, had long been neglected. The few old families, who in early days settled on this site, still remained; and, with the opening of new cable-car lines, found themselves, not only within a short distance of down-town, but at the same time almost as isolated as if they had dwelt in the country, for this part of the city is upon none of the main routes--few frequent the locality except upon some special errand.

One side of the street was still unbuilt upon; on the southern side stood three houses, each upon its fifty-vara lot, comfortably filling the short block. That occupied by the Paysons was an old frame structure of two stories, without attempt at ornamentation, except for its quaint, Tudoresque pointed windows and a machicolated wooden battlement round the flat roof. It stood on a gentle slope, surrounded by an old-fashioned garden, which was hedged in, on either side, by rows of cypress and eucalyptus trees, protecting it from the trade winds, which here blow unhampered across the water.

In front, a scene ever-changing in color as the atmospheric conditions changed, was ranged in a semi-circular pageant, the wild panorama of San Francisco Bay, from Point Bonita and Golden Gate in the west, past the Marin County shore with Sausalito twinkling under the long, beautiful profile of Mount Tamalpais, past Belvedere with its white villas, Alcatraz and Goat Island floating in the harbor, to the foot-hills behind Oakland and Berkeley, where, in the east, Mount Diablo's pointed peak shimmered in the blue distance.

In the second story of this house Clytie had a bookbinding room, where she spent most of her spare time. It was large, bare, sunny, impregnated with the odor of leather skins, clean and orderly. A sewing frame and a heavy press stood behind her bench and upon a table were neatly arranged the pages of a book upon which she was working. Carefully placed in workmanlike precision were her knives, shears, glue pot and gas heater and a case of stamping irons in pigeonholes.

She was, this afternoon, in a brown gingham pinafore, with her sleeves rolled up, seated before the table, her sensitive hands moving deftly at the most delicate operation connected with her craft. Upon a square of heavy plate glass, she laid a torn, ragged page, and, from several old fly leaves, selected one that matched it in color. She cut a piece of paper slightly larger than the missing portion, skived the edges, and pasted it over the hole or along the frayed margin. The work was absorbing and exacting to her eyes; to rest them, she went, from time to time, to the window and looked out upon the bay.

The water was gray-green streaked with a deeper blue. In the "north harbor" two barks lay at anchor in the stream and ferry-boats plied the fairway. In and out of the Gate there passed, at intervals, tugs with sailing ships bound out with lumber or in with nitrates, steamers to coast ports, or liners from overseas, rusty, weather-beaten tramps, strings of heavy-going barges, lusty little tugs, lumber schooners wallowing through the tide rip, Italian fishing smacks, lateen-rigged with russet sails, saucy launches, and, at last, the magnificent bulk of a white battleship sliding imperiously into the roadstead along the waterfront.

At four o'clock Clytie's mind seemed to wander from her occupation, and now, when she ceased and looked out of the window, her abstracted gaze was evidently not directed at what she saw. Her mental vision, rather, seemed alert. Her slender golden eyebrows drew closer together, her narrow, sharp nostrils dilated; her lips, half open, inhaled deep, unconscious breaths. The pupils of her eyes contracted like a cat's in the light. Then she shook herself, passed her hand over her forehead, shrugged her shoulders and resumed her work.

A little later this performance was repeated; this time, after her momentary preoccupation, she rose more briskly, put her tools away, laid her book carefully aside and took off her pinafore. After washing her hands she went into her own room on the same floor. She went down-stairs ten minutes after, in a fresh frock, her hair nicely arranged, radiating a faint perfume of violet water. She opened the front door and walked slowly down the path to the gate where the wall, though but waist-high on the garden side, stood high above the sidewalk. Here she waited, touching the balustrade delicately with her outstretched fingers, as if playing upon a piano. The breeze loosened the severity of her coiffure, which relaxed into slight touches of curling frivolity about her ears and neck. Her pink frock billowed out into flowing, statuesque folds as she stood, like a figurehead, gazing off at the mountains. Her mouth was set into a shape not quite a smile, a queer, tremulously subtle expression of suspense. She kept her eyes in the direction of Hyde Street.

It was not long before a man turned the corner and walked briskly toward her. He looked up at the first house on the block, searching for the number; then, as his eyes traveled along to the next gate, he caught sight of her. Instantly his soft felt hat swung off with a quick flourish and he sent her a pleased smile.

"Here I am, Mr. Granthope!" Clytie called down to him, and on the instant her face was suffused with pink. She had evidently expected him, but now she appeared as agitated as if his coming had surprised her.

He ran up the flight of wooden steps, his eyes holding hers all the way. His dark, handsome face glowed; he abounded with life and spirit as he stood before her, hand outstretched. In the other, he held a small leather-bound book.

"Good afternoon, Miss Payson!" he said heartily. He shook hands eagerly, his touch, even in that conventional greeting, consciously managed; the grasp was sensitive and he delayed its withdrawal a suggestive second, his dark eyes already at work upon hers. "How lucky I was to catch you out here!" he added, as he dropped her hand.

"Oh, I've been expecting you for some time," Clytie replied, retreating imperceptibly, as from an emotional attack, and turning away her eyes.

He noticed her susceptibility, and modified his manner slightly.

"Why! You couldn't possibly have known I was coming?"

"But I did! Does that surprise you? I told you I had intuitions, you know. You came to bring my ring, didn't you?"

"Yes, of course. You really have second-sight, then?" He looked at her as one might look at a fairy, in amusement mingled with admiration.

"Yes--haven't _you_?" She put it to him soberly.

"Haven't I already proved it?" His eyes, well-schooled, kept to hers boldly, seeking for the first sign of her incredulity. Into his manner he had tried to infuse a temperamental sympathy, establishing a personal relation.

She did not answer for a moment, gazing at him disconcertingly; then her eyes wandered, as she remarked: "You certainly proved something, I don't quite know what."

He laughed it off, saying: "Well, I've proved at least that I wanted to see you again, and made the most of this excuse."

"Yes, I'm glad I forgot the ring. I'm really very glad to see you, too--I half hoped I might. Won't you come up to my summer-house? It's not so windy there, and we can talk better."

He accepted, pleased at the invitation and the implied promise it held, and followed her up the path and off toward the line of trees. The place was now visited by belated sunshine which compensated for the sharp afternoon breeze. In the shelter of the cypress hedge the air was warm and fragrant. Here was an arbor built of withe crockery crates overgrown with climbing nasturtiums; it contained a seat looking eastward, towards Telegraph Hill. In front stood a sun-dial mounted on a terra cotta column, beneath a clump of small Lombardy poplars.

As she seated herself she pointed to it. "Did you know that this is a sort of cemetery? That sun-dial is really a gravestone. When I was a little girl I buried my doll underneath it. She had broken open, letting the sawdust all out, and I thought she must be dead. It may be there now, for all I know; I never dug her up."

He looked over at the shaft, saying, "A very pretty piece of symbolism. I suppose I have buried illusions, myself, somewhere."

She thought it over for a moment, and apparently was pleased. "I'd like to dig some of them up," she said at last, turning to him, with the slow movement of her head that was characteristic of her.

"Haven't you enough left?"

She started to reply, but evidently decided not to say what she had intended, and let it drop there, her thought passing in a puzzling smile as she looked away again.

He had laid his book beside him upon the bench, and, when her eyes came back, she took it up and looked at it. A glance inside showed it to be an old edition of Montaigne. She smiled, her eyes drifted to him with a hint of approval for his taste, then she turned her interest to the binding. As she fingered the leather, touching the tooled surfaces sensitively, her curiosity did not escape his sharp eyes, watching for anything that should be revelatory.

She explained: "I have a technical interest in bindings. I do some of that work myself. It's curious that I happened to be at work to-day on an old copy of Montaigne. I'm rebinding it for my father's birthday. You'd never think my hands were of any practical use, would you?"

He laughed. "Inconsistencies like that are what baffles one most, especially when one knows that most characters are inconsistent. But we professionals have to go by general rules. I should expect you to be an exception to all of them, though."

He watched her surreptitiously, noting her diminishing color, the evasion of her glance, and the air of self-consciousness with which she spoke, as they talked for a while of obvious things--the weather, the view, and the picturesque, old-fashioned garden. She had taken the ring and had put it upon her finger, keeping her eyes on its turquoises. Her whole demeanor ministered to his vanity, already pleased by her frank welcome. He was used enough to women's interest and admiration for him to expect it and play upon it, but this was of a shyer and more elusive sort; it seemed to hold something more seriously considered, it baffled him, even as he enjoyed its unction. Besides all this, too, there was a secret romantic charm in the fact that they had shared together that vivid experience of the past. He came back for another draught of flattery.

"It was odd that you expected me, wasn't it?" he said. "I can't help wondering about it."

She had her eyes upon the Sausalito boat, which was weaving a trailing web of foam past Alcatraz Island. At his words, she turned to him with the same slow seriousness as before and replied:

"I shouldn't think it would seem so remarkable to you, your own power is so much more wonderful."

"Perhaps so in that one case, but you know I don't, ordinarily, claim clairvoyance. It's only occasionally, as the other day with you, that I attempt it."

Her eyes awakened; she said earnestly, "Was I really able to bring that out in you?"

He caught at the hint. "Why, what else could it be but your magnetism? It was the more strange because I had never seen you before."

The glow faded, and she relaxed her nervous energy. "Ah, hadn't you? I wonder!"

"Why, had you ever seen me before that day?"

"I think so. At least you seem, somehow, familiar."

"When was it, and where, then?"

She seemed too puzzled to answer, or fatigued with following an intangible thread of thought. As she spoke, slowly, intensely, her hands made large, vague gestures, often pausing in mid air, as her voice paused, waiting for the proper word to come. "I don't know. It only seems as if I had been with you--or near you, or something--I don't know what. It's like a dream--or a story I can't quite recall, only--" she did not finish the sentence.

He wondered what her game could be. Fundamentally cynical, though he never permitted it to show in his manner, he distrusted her claims to prevision. There was, after all, nothing in Miss Payson's words that might not be accounted for by what he knew of the wiles of feminine psychology. His training had taught him how much a baseless hint, injected at the proper moment, could accomplish in the masquerade of emotions and the crafty warfare of the sexes. That he and she had been actors together in a past uncomprehended scene, he regarded as a mere coincidence of which he had already made good use; he refused to connect it with her suggestive remark, for he was sure that she must have been unaware of his presence in Madam Grant's room that day, so long ago. It seemed to him more likely that, woman-fashion, she had shot into the air and had brought down an unsuspected quarry. And yet, even as a coincidence, he could not quite dismiss the strangeness of it from his mind.

He was preparing to turn it to a sentimental advantage, when Clytie, who had relapsed into silence, suddenly aroused herself with one of those impulsive outbursts which were characteristic of her.

"There is something about it all that is stranger still, I think!"

Her golden brows had drawn together, separated by two vertical lines, as she gazed at him. Then with a little jet of fervor, she added:

"I'm afraid I know too much about you, Mr. Granthope! It's somewhat embarrassing, really. It doesn't seem quite fair, you know."

"I'm not quite sure that I understand."

"Oh, you know! You must know!"

He laughed. "Really, Miss Payson, it's very flattering, of course--"

"Oh, no, it's not in the least flattering."

"I wish you'd explain, then." He leaned back, folded his arms and waited indulgently. So long as he could keep the conversation personal, he was sure of being able to manage her, and further his own ends. It amused him.

She busied herself with a lace handkerchief as she continued, in a low voice, as if she were ridding herself of a disagreeable task, and always with the slow, monotonous turning of her questing eyes toward him, and away. "Of course I've heard many things about you--you're a good deal talked about, you know; but it's not that at all--it's an instinctive knowledge I have about you. I can't explain it. It's a queer special feeling--almost as if, in some way, I had the right to know. That's why I wanted to see you again--I hoped you'd come. I wanted to tell you."

"But all that certainly is flattering," he said. "I wouldn't be human if I weren't pleased to hear that you're interested, even if--"

She could not help breaking into smiles again, as she interrupted him.

"Oh, but I haven't told you yet."

"Please do, then!"

"It sounds so foolish when I say it--so priggish! But it's this: I don't at all approve of you. Why in the world should I care? I don't know. It isn't my business to reform you, if you need it." Now she had brought it out, she could not look at him.

Curiously enough, though he had been amused at her assumption of a circumstantial knowledge of him, this hinted comprehension of his character, of the duplicity of his life, if it were that, impressed him with the existence in her mind of some quality as rare and mysterious as electricity, a real psychic gift, perhaps. It gave him an instant's pause. Instinctively he feared a more definite arraignment. He began a little more seriously, now, to match his cleverness against her intuition; and, for the first defense, he employed a move of masculine coquetry.

"You have been thinking of me, then?"

"Yes," she replied simply, "I have thought about you a good deal since I was in your studio. But I suppose you're used to hearing things like that from women." She was apologetic, rather than sarcastic.

He shrugged his shoulders. He seemed to be able to make no way against her directness. "I've thought not a little of you, too, Miss Payson. You are wonderfully psychic and sensitive. I think you should develop your power--you might be able to do extraordinary things with it. I wish you'd let me help you. That is," he added humorously, "if I'm not too far gone in your disapproval."

"Oh, the disapproval--I call it that for want of a better word--isn't so important as the fact that I should feel it at all, don't you see? You remember that you told me I was the kind of a woman who, if she liked a man, would tell him so, freely. That is true. I would scorn to stoop to the immemorial feminine tricks. I do like you, and in spite of what I can't quite explain, too. I don't know why, either. It seems as if it's a part of that other feeling I've mentioned--that I've been with you, or near you, before."

He leaned forward to extort more of this delicious confession from her. "Do you mean spiritually, or merely physically near?"

"Oh, I don't mean an 'elective affinity' or anything so occult as that," she laughed. "Indeed, I don't quite know what I do mean--it's all so vague. I can't formulate it. It escapes me when I try. But I did know, for instance, quite definitely, that I'd see you again. I tell you about it only because I think that you, with your power in that way, may be able to understand it and explain it to me."

He thought he saw his chance, now, and instinctively he began to pose, letting his eyes deepen and burn on her. He nodded his head and said impressively:

"Yes. I have felt it, too, Miss Payson. It's wonderful to think that you should have recognized me and understood me so well. No one ever has before. We are related by some tie--I'm sure we've met before, somewhere, somehow--"

She jumped up and stood before him, her hands tightly held, her lips pressed together. For a moment, so, she looked hard at him; then what there had been of anger in her gaze softened to something like sadness or pity.

"_That's_ what I meant!"

He misunderstood her remark and her attitude and went still farther astray from her meaning.

"You are not like any other woman I have ever known," he said, in the same soulful way.

"Why can't you be honest with me!" she broke out. She was astonishingly alive now; there was no trace of her former languor. He winced at realizing, suddenly, and too late, that he had made a false step.

"Why do you make me regret having been frank?" she went on, with a despairing throb in her voice. "You have almost succeeded in making me ashamed of myself, already. _That_ is just what I disapprove of in you. Don't imagine that you can ever deceive me with such sentimentality. I shall always know when you're straightforward and simple. That's what I've been trying to make you understand--that I _do_ know!"

She turned slowly away from him, almost hopelessly. For a moment she remained immobile, then before he had recovered his wits, she had modified the situation for him. Her eyes drifted back to his as she remarked thoughtfully:

"I am sure, too, that you could help me, if you would."

"How?" He tried to pull himself together.

"Merely by being honest with me."

He raised his eyebrows.

"Oh, I know that's a good deal to ask," she laughed.

"Of me?"

"Of any one."

"I'll try, Miss Payson," he said, not too seriously. "But you've frightened me. I don't dare think too hard about anything, you're such a witch."

She released him graciously and keyed down to an easier tone.

"You must forgive me if I've been too frank, Mr. Granthope, but this interview is almost like a first meeting, and you know how much one is apt to say in such a situation. Let's not continue the discussion--I'm embarrassed enough already. I know I shall regret what I've said. We'll talk of something pleasanter. Tell me about that pretty girl in your office."

"Oh!" he exclaimed, and his tone was as if he had said, "Aha!" He wondered if it were possible that, after all, it was only this which had moved her to speak.

Clytie frowned, but if she read his thought, she let it go unchallenged.

"She's an original little thing; I like her," she added.

"You do?" he said mischievously exaggerating his surprise.

"Yes, I do. Don't think I'm trying to patronize her, but she's a dear--and she's very pretty."

"Do you think so? I shall have to tell her that. She's pretty enough, at least, to have been on the stage. She was in vaudeville for a couple of years. I first got acquainted with her at the Orpheum. I've known her a long time. She's a great help and a great comfort to me, and a very clever girl."

"How long has she been your assistant?"

"Two years."

"And you haven't fallen in love with her yet?"

Granthope was relieved. He was sure now that she was, if not jealous, suspicious of his relations with Fancy. It was not the first time he had encountered such insinuations.

"Oh, not in the least," he said. "I can give you my word as to that. I don't think it ever occurred to me--though I'd do anything in the world for her."

"And I suppose you're as sure of her immunity?"