Chapter VII: Part 7

Blanchard Cayley came over and sat down beside Granthope in Clytie's empty chair. He, too, had taken off his wig. His smile was ingratiating, his voice was suave, as he said:

"I don't want to make you talk shop if you don't care to, Granthope, but I'd like to know if you ever heard of reading the character by thumb-prints. I don't know exactly what you'd call it--papilamancy, perhaps."

"I don't think it has ever been done, but I don't see why it shouldn't be," said Granthope, amused.

"What is necessary to make it a science?"

Granthope, quicker with women than with men, was at a loss to see what Cayley was driving at, but he suspected a trap, and foresaw that his science was to be impugned. He countermined:

"Oh, first of all, a classification and a terminology," he suggested. Cayley was caught neatly. He was more ignorant than he knew.

"Why don't you classify the markings then? I should think it might be considered a logical development of chiromancy."

"One reason is, because they have already been classified by Galton. I've forgotten most of it, but I remember some of the primary divisions. Have you a pencil?"

Cayley unbuttoned and threw open his plum-colored, long-sleeved 'dun,' disclosing evening dress underneath, and produced a pencil which he gave to the palmist. Granthope smoothed out his paper napkin, and, as he talked, drew illustrative diagrams upon it.

"You see, the identification of thumb-prints is made by means of the characteristic involution of the nucleus and its envelope. One needs only a few square millimeters of area. There are three primary nuclei--arches, whorls and loops. Each has variously formed cores. The arch, for instance, may be tented or forked--so. The whorls may be circular or spiral. The loops may be nascent, invaded or crested, and may contain either a single or several rods, as they are called. Let me see your thumb, please. You have a banded, duplex, spiral whorl. It was there when you were born, it will be the same in form when you die. Mine is an invaded loop with three rods."

He saw by Cayley's face that he had scored. Such technical detail was, in point of fact, Cayley's penchant, and he was interested. Granthope proceeded:

"Almost every distinguishing characteristic of the human body has been used at one time or another for divination or interpretation, as I suppose you know."

Cayley saw an opening. "But what do you think the reading of moles, for instance, amounts to, really?"

"The reading of them, very little, of course. But the location of them, a good deal."

"Ah," said Cayley, "I thought so. Then you affirm an esoteric basis with regard to such interpretations? You think that a mass of absolute knowledge has been conserved, coming down from no one knows where, I suppose?"

"There are several ways of looking at it," Granthope answered him. He threw himself back in his chair and gathered the company in with his eyes. "One theory, as you know, is that palmistry derives its authority from the fact that the lines are produced by the opening and closing of the hand--originally, at least--the fundamental markings being inherited, as are our fundamental mental characteristics--and that such alteration of the tissue is directly affected by the character. One stamps his own particular way of doing things upon his palm. Using the right hand most, more is shown there that is individually characteristic. Of course this theory will not apply to the distribution of moles upon the body. But it seems to me that every part of an organic growth must be consistent with the whole, and with what governs it. Everything about a person must necessarily be characteristic of the individual. There are really no such things as accidents, if we except scars. We recognize that in studying physiognomy, and, to a certain extent, in phrenology. It is suggested less intelligibly in a person's gait, gesture and pose. Everything that is distinctive must be significant, if only we have the power of interpreting it. Of course we have not that power as yet. Palmistry, being the most obvious and striking method, has been more fully developed. A great amount of data has been collected upon the subject, and every good palmist is continually adding to that material. But I believe that, to a possible higher intelligence, any part of a man's body would reveal his character--since every specialized partial manifestation of himself must be correlated with every other part and the whole. How else could it be? An infinite experience would draw a man's mental and physical portrait, for instance, from a single toe, as it is possible for a scientist to portray a whole extinct animal from a single bone. I think that there can be, in short, no possible divergence from type without a reason for it; and that reason is the same one that molded his character."

"But that doesn't explain prognostication of the future." By this time the animus of Cayley's attack had died out. He was now impersonally interested.

"No scientific palmist attempts to give more than possibilities. He must combine with the signs in the hands a certain amount of psychology--a knowledge of the tendencies of human nature--in order to predict. But, after all, his diagnosis, when it is logical, is as accurate as that of the ordinary physician, and the risk is less serious. How many doctors look wise and take serious chances--or prescribe bread-pills? There's guess-work enough in all professions."

By this time the two had been joined by several others who hung over them in a group, listening. Fernigan interjected:

"That's right! Even Blanchard has to guess what he's talking about most of the time!"

"And you have to guess whether you're sober or not!" said slim Keith with the white nose.

"When you talk about the probable tendencies of human nature, you don't know what you're up against," said Cayley, retreating. "San Francisco is a town where people are likely to do anything. There's no limit, no predicting for them. They were buying air-ship stock on the street down at Lotta's fountain, the last thing I heard."

The old gentleman in evening dress, still wearing his Chinese paper crown, took him up enthusiastically.

"You can be more foolish here without getting into the insane asylum than any place on earth, but you have to be a thoroughbred spiritualist before you can really call yourself bug-house. Look at old man Bennett! You couldn't make anything up he wouldn't believe!"

"What about him?" said Cayley. "I would like to have him for my collection of freaks.

"Oh, he was a furniture manufacturer here. I knew him well, but I forget the details. It was something fierce though, the way they worked him."

Granthope smiled. "I can tell you something about Bennett," he offered. "I happened to hear the whole story nearly at first hand."

"Let's have it," Cayley proposed.

Granthope leaned back in his chair and began, rather pleased at having an audience.

"Why, he went to investigating spiritualism and fell into the hands of a man named Harry Wing and a gang of mediums here. They won Bennett over to a firm belief, step by step, till he was the dupe of every ghost that appeared in the materializing circles, which cost him twenty-five dollars an evening, by the way. One man that helped Wing out, played spirit, pretended to be his dead son, and used to ask him for jewelry so that he could dematerialize it, and then rematerialize it for identification. If Bennett went down to Los Angeles he'd take the same train and turn up at a circle there, proving he was the same spirit by the rings that had been given him up here. Well, Bennett got so strong for it that after a while they didn't bother with cabinets and dark seances--the players used to walk right in the door. Then they'd tell him that, as partly materialized spirits, they ought to have dinner to increase their magnetism, and he'd send out for chicken and wine. Finally they got him so they'd point out people on the street and assert that they were spirits. The prettiest test was when they materialized Cleopatra. I've never seen the Egyptian queen, but she certainly wasn't a bit prettier than the girl who played her part. Bennett, as an extraordinary test of her strength, was allowed to take her out to the Cliff House in a hack. The curtains of the carriage had to be pulled down to keep the daylight from burning her."

"Oh, Cliff House, what crimes have been committed in thy name!" Fernigan murmured.

"Next, they made Bennett believe that his influence was so valuable in accustoming spirits to earth-conditions, that they were going to reveal a new bible to him, with all the errors and omissions corrected, and he would go down to posterity as its author. In return, he was to help civilize the planet Jupiter. You see, Jupiter being an exterior planet was behind the earth in culture. Bennett contributed all sorts of agricultural implements and furniture to be dematerialized and sent to Jupiter, there to be rematerialized and used as patterns. Wing even got him to contribute a five hundred dollar carriage for the same purpose. It was sold by the gang for seventy-five dollars, and even when it was shown to Bennett by his friends, who were trying to save him, he wouldn't believe it was the same one. They milked him out of every cent at last, and he died bankrupt."

Granthope had scarcely finished his story when the drawing-room doors were half opened and Mrs. Page appeared on the threshold pouting.

"Aren't you ever coming in here?" she exclaimed petulantly. "You might let us have Mr. Granthope, at least."

The men rose and sauntered in, one by one.

Granthope had but a moment in which to reflect upon what he had done, but in that moment he regretted his indiscretion in telling the Bennett story. He had not been able to resist the opportunity to make himself interesting and agreeable; now he wondered what price he would have to pay for it. The next moment his speculations vanished at the sight of Clytie.

He went directly to her and sat down. Although the party was dispersed in little groups, the conversation had become more or less general, and he had no chance to talk to her alone. He received her smile, however, and she favored him with as much of her talk as was possible.

As she sat there, with relaxed grace that was almost languor, she made the other women in the room look either negligently lolling or awkwardly conscious. He noticed how some of them showed the fabled western influence of environment by the frank abandon of their pose, how others held themselves rigidly, as if aware of their own lack, and sought, by stern attention, to conceal it. Clytie's head was poised proudly, her hands fell from her slender wrists like drooping flowers. Her whole body was faultlessly composed, unified with harmonious lines, as if a masterly portrait were gently roused into life.

Fernigan now began, upon request, a Chinese parody, accompanied by absurd pantomime. Granthope could not bear it, and, seeing Clytie still busy with her admirers, slipped out of the room and went up to the library.

Mr. Maxwell's books were rare and carefully selected, a treat for such an amateur as Granthope. He went from case to case fingering the volumes, opening and glancing through one after another. The pursuit kept him longer than he had intended.

There was a smaller room off the library, used as a study and shut off by a portiere. Granthope, standing near the entrance, suddenly heard the sound of swishing skirts and footsteps, then the subdued, modulated voices of two women. With no intention at first of eavesdropping, he kept on with his perusal of the book in his hand. The first part of the conversation he remembered rather than listened to, but it soon attracted his alert attention.

"I think it's a rather extraordinary thing, Mrs. Maxwell's asking him, though, don't you?" one of the ladies said.

The reply was in a gentle and more sympathetic voice: "Oh, she wanted an attraction, I suppose, and he's really very good-looking, you know."

"He's handsome enough, but he's too much like a matinee hero for me; my dear, he's absolutely impossible, really! He's not the sort of person one cares to meet more than once. He's beyond the pale.

"It's rather cruel to invite him just to show him off, I think. In a way, he had to accept."

"Oh, I expect he's only too glad to come."

"I wonder how he feels! Do you suppose he has any idea that he's out of his element? It must be strange to be willing to accept an invitation when you know you are, after all, only a sort of freak."

"Don't worry. A charlatan has to have a pretty thick skin--no doubt he'll make use of all of us, and brag about his acquaintance. That's his business, you know; he has to advertise himself."

"I know; but every man has his own sense of dignity, and it must be somewhat mortifying--no self-respecting coal-heaver would accept such an invitation--his pride would keep him from it.

"I don't see how a man like that can have much pride. A coal-heaver has, after all, a dignified way of earning his living. This man hasn't. His trade can't permit him to be self-respecting. It's more undignified than any honest labor would be. Why, he lives by trickery and flattery, and now he's beginning to toady, too. Just look at the way he is after Clytie Payson, already."

"Yes, I can't see why she permits it, but she seems to be positively fascinated by him. Isn't it strange how a fine girl like that is usually the most easily deceived? Did you see the way she was looking at him at supper? That told the story. Of course, you'd expect it of Mrs. Page, but not of Cly."

"Don't you believe it! Cly's no fool--she sees through him. He's interesting, you can't deny that; and you know that a clever man can get about anything he wants in this town. There are too few of them to go round, and so they're all spoiled. But Cly's only playing him."

"You don't think she's deliberately fooling him, do you?"

"Nonsense! I know Cly as well as you do. She would always play fair enough, of course, but that doesn't prevent her wanting to study a new specimen, especially one as attractive as Granthope. But it won't last long. Cly's too honest. It's likely that he'll go too far and take advantage of her--then she'll call him down and dismiss him."

"Do you think he imagines that he could really--" began the other.

"Oh, _he's_ no fool either! He knows perfectly well where he belongs, but he's working his chances while they last."

Granthope had been deliberately listening and, as the last words came to his ears, his emotion burst into flame. This, then, was how he was regarded by the new circle into which he had been admitted. He was a curiosity, handsome, but beyond the pale--even Clytie, it was probable, was willing to amuse herself with him. The illumination it gave him as to his status was vivid, its radiance scorched him.

He had never caught this point of view before. He had been too interested in his emergence from obscurity, he had even congratulated himself upon his increasing success. Now he saw that the further he went on that road the further away from Clytie he would be--he saw the chasm that separated them. His undignified profession appeared to him for the first time in its true aspect. The humiliation and mortification of that revelation was sickening. He had not believed that it was possible for him to suffer over anything so keenly. The insults he had received, produced, after a poignant moment of despair, an energetic reaction. His fighting instinct was awakened. He had achieved a certain control of himself, he had a social poise and assurance that kindled his mind at the prospect of an encounter.

He drew aside the portiere and walked boldly into the little room.

Two ladies were sitting there, picturesque in their costumes. Their rainbow-hued garments showed a bizarre blotch of color in the quiet monochrome of the place. Their faces were whitened with powder, their eyebrows blackened to the willow-curve, their lips lined with red--they looked, in the half-light, like fantastic, exotic Pierrettes. As they caught sight of him they started up with surprise, almost with fear. Granthope bowed with a quiet smile, perfectly master of himself.

"I want to apologize for having overheard your conversation," he said. "I must confess that I was eavesdropping. My business is, you know, to read character for others, and I don't often have a chance to hear my own so well described. I'm much obliged to you, I'm sure."

He had the whip-hand now. There was nothing for them to say; they said nothing, staring at him, their lips parted.

He walked through to the door of the hall and there paused like an actor making his exit from the stage. A cynical smile still floated on his lips. He had never looked more handsome, with his black hair, his clean-cut head, and his fine, deep eyes that looked them over calmly, without haste. His costume became him and he wore it well. Now, as he raised his hand, the long sleeve of his olive green coat fell a little away from his fingers. Below, his lavender trousers gleamed softly. It was a queer draping for his serious pose. It was a strangely figured pair that he addressed as they sat, embarrassed, immovable in their splendid silken garments.

He added more gently, with no trace of sarcasm in his smooth voice: "I would like to tell you, if it is any satisfaction for you to know, that your operation has been successful. It was rather painful, without the anesthetic of kindness, but I shall recover. I think I may even be better for it, perhaps restored to health--who knows!" Then his smile became enigmatic; he left them and went down the stairs.

He made his way to Clytie with a new assurance; inexplicably to him, some innate power, long in reserve, had risen to meet the emergency. He was exhilarated, as with a victory. She looked up at him puzzled.

"I wonder if you know what has happened this time?" he said.

"Oh, if I only did! Something has--you have changed, somehow."

"Is it an improvement?"

"You know, it is my theory that you're going to--" She gave up her explanation--her lips quivered. "Well, yes! You have been embarrassed?"

"I suppose it was good for my vanity."

"Then you have heard something unpleasant."

"The truth often is."

"Was it true?"

He laughed it off. "It was nothing I mightn't have known."

"Then it is for you to make it false, isn't it?"

"If I can."

"I think there is nothing you couldn't do if you tried."

"There is nothing I couldn't do if I had your help," he answered.

For answer, she took the little gold heart-shaped bottle from its mesh-work and handed it to him.

"You must learn--but perhaps this may help you. Will you keep it?"

He took it and thanked her with his eyes. Then, their dialogue being interrupted, he moved off. He wandered about, speaking to one and another for a few moments, gradually drifting toward the hall.

As he stood just outside the reception-room he glanced up the broad stairs carelessly, thinking of the two ladies to whom he had spoken. He smiled to himself, wondering if they had yet come down. While he was watching, he saw a woman at the top of the stairs, looking over the rail. A second glance showed her to be a servant. She descended slowly, and, in a moment, beckoned stealthily. He paid no attention.

She came nearer, and, finally, seeing no one with him, called out to him in a whisper. It was Lucie, Mrs. Maxwell's maid. The moment Granthope recognized her, he walked into the parlors again, as if he had not noticed her.

Soon after that he paid his farewell amenities to his hostess and went up to where he had left his hat and coat. Lucie was in the upper hall waiting for him.

"Mr. Granthope," she whispered, "may I speak to you a moment? I have something."

"Not now," he said, passing on.

She plucked at his sleeve. "I've got a great story," she insisted.

He shook his head.

"Shall I come down to your office?"

"Be quiet!" he said under his breath, and went in for his things.

She was waiting for him when he emerged.

"I'll come down as soon as I can get off," she continued.

He shrugged his shoulders without looking at her, and went down-stairs, and out.

*CHAPTER VII*

*THE WEAVING OF THE WEB*

Madam Spoll was sitting in her study on Eddy Street, awaiting her victim, when Francis Granthope, immaculate as usual, appeared in her doorway, having been admitted by Spoll. She was in front of the glass, pinning on a lace collar.

"Hello, Frank," she said cordially, looking over her shoulder, "you're a sight for sore eyes! We don't see much of you, nowadays."

"I've been pretty busy, lately," he answered, sitting down and looking about with an expression of ill-concealed distaste. The stuffy, crowded room seemed more unpleasant than ever, after his evening at the Maxwells'. Madam Spoll seemed more gross. Everything that had been familiar to him had somehow changed. He seemed to have a different angle of vision. It was close and warm, and the air smelled of dust.

"You ain't a-going to forget your old friends, now you've got in with the four hundred, are you, Frank?" she said earnestly.

He pulled out a cigarette-case and lit a cigarette. As he struck the match he answered:

"Not if they don't meddle in my affairs." He gazed at her coolly as he inhaled a puff of smoke and sent a ring across the room.

Madam Spoll's face grew stern. "That's no way to talk, Frank. I've been the same as a mother to you, in times past, ever since you went into business, in fact. It looks like you was getting too good for us."

"Why, what's the matter now?"

"Oh, you're so stand-off, nowadays."

He laughed uneasily. "You always said I was spoiled."

"Well, who's spoiling you now? Miss Payson?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know, well enough! Lord, why don't you come out with it! It's all in the family, ain't it? You've got her on the string, all right, ain't you?"

"I have not." The frown grew deeper in his forehead.

"H'm!" She drew a long breath. "Well, that means we'll have to begin at the beginning, then, I expect. I had a sort of an idea that you _had_ got her going, and wouldn't mind saying so, but if you're going to go to work and be mysterious, why, I'll have to talk straight business." She pointed at him with her pudgy finger. "Now, see here, she's been writing to you, anyways. You can't deny _that_."

"What makes you think so?"

"I don't think anything at all about it; I know. What d'you take me for? A Portugee cook? It's my business to know all about the Paysons, that's all. Very good."

Granthope looked more concerned, and eyed her suspiciously.

"There's only one way for you to have found that out," he said. "And that reminds me. I want to get those notes I gave you about her when you were up at my place. I didn't keep a copy, and I've forgotten some of the details that I need."

Madam Spoll raised her eyebrows, also her shoulders, and made an inarticulate noise in her throat. "Funny you need them so bad all of a sudden. Not that they done us much good--we've found out a lot for ourselves; about all we need for the present."

"Well, I haven't interfered with your game, and I don't see why you should interfere with mine. Only, I'd like those memoranda back, please." His tone was almost peremptory.

"I'm sorry, but I ain't got 'em."

"Where are they?"

"Why, I give 'em to Vixley."

Granthope saw that it was no use to go further. He had, in spite of his precautions, already aroused her suspicions, and so he pretended to consider the matter of no moment. Madam Spoll, however, was now thoroughly aroused.

"What I want to know, Frank, is whether you're with us or not."

"I thought the understanding was that we were to work separately."

"Separately _and_ together. Mutual exchange _and_ actual profit, for each and for all. We got a mighty good thing in Payson, me and Vixley have, and we propose to work it for all it's worth. It'll be for your interest to come in and help us out. True, you have done something, but now you're lallagagging, so to speak, when you might be making a big haul. Payson's easy, and we can steer the girl your way, through him. He'll believe anything. All we got to do is to say my guides want him to have you for a son-in-law, and the trick is as good as turned. I agree to get him started this afternoon. He's a ten-to-one shot. I can see that with half an eye. It'll only be up to you to make good with the girl, and Lord knows that'll be easy for you. Now is that straight enough for you?"

Granthope rose and began to pace the floor nervously. He paused to straighten some magazines upon the table, he adjusted a photograph upon the wall, he moved back a chair; then he turned to her and said:

"I don't see how there's anything in this for me. I'm through with all that sort of thing, and I think, on the whole, I'll stay out. I'm going in for straight palmistry--and--well, another kind of game altogether. You wouldn't understand it even if I explained. I've got a good start, now, and I don't want to queer myself."

Madam Spoll made a theatrical gesture of surprise. "Lord, Frank, who would have thought of you doing the Sunday-school superintendent act on me! A body would think you'd never faked in your life! My Lord, I'm trying to lead you astray, am I?"

"That's all right. I don't pretend to be very virtuous, but some of this is getting a little raw for me."

Madam Spoll opened her eyes and her mouth. "What's got into you, anyway?"

"Something's got out, perhaps," he said, frowning. "At any rate, I don't care to make use of Miss Payson to help you rob her father."

"Rob her father!" Outraged innocence throbbed in Madam Spoll's voice. "Lord, Frank, you're plumb crazy! Why, he won't spend no money he don't want to, will he? He can afford it well enough! He'll never miss what we get out of him. You might think I was going to pick his pockets, the way you talk." She took him by the arm. "See here! You ain't really stuck on that Payson girl, are you? Why, if I didn't know you so well, I'd be almost ready to suspect you of it! But land, you've had women running after you ever since you went into business! But I notice you don't often stay away from the office more'n two days running."

"I don't know that my private affairs are any of your business," he said curtly. He was rather glad, now, of the chance for an outright quarrel.

But she would not let it come to that, and continued in a wheedling tone: "Well, this happens to be my business, and I speak to you as a friend, Frank, for your own good as well as mine. You can take it or leave it, of course; I ain't a-going to try and put coercion on to you, and there's time enough to decide when we get Payson wired up. Then I'll talk to you just once more. You just think it over a while, and don't do nothing rash."

Granthope arose to leave. He was for a more romantic game, himself. The vulgarity here offended him esthetically rather than ethically, and yet he winced at the insinuations Madam Spoll had made.

"I think I can go it alone," he said; "as for rashness, I won't promise."

He had gone but a few minutes when Professor Vixley entered and shook a long lean claw with Madam Spoll, took off his coat and sat down. "Well," he said affably, "how're they coming, Gert?"

"Oh, so-so; Frank Granthope's just been here."

"Is that so! Did you get anything out of him?"

"No. And he wants his Payson notes back again. What d'you think of that!"

Vixley crossed his legs, and whistled a low, astonished note. "We're goin' to have trouble with Frank, I expect."

Madam Spoll's smooth forehead wrinkled. "Frank's a fool! He's leary of us, and I believe he'll throw us down if we don't look out."

"Most time to put the screws on, ain't it?"

"I don't know; we'll see. We can go it alone for a while. Wait till we really need him and I'll guarantee to make him mind. He's got the society bug so bad I couldn't do anything with him."

"The more he gets into society the more use he is to us," said Vixley. "He's a pretty smooth article."

"Do you know, I have an idea he's getting stuck on that Payson girl."

Vixley cackled.

"You never can tell," said Madam Spoll. "I believe Frank's got good blood in him. Sooner or later it's bound to come out."

"Well, if he's after the girl, it'll be easier for us to bring him around. He won't care to be gave away."

"That's right, and we'll use it. I can see that girl's face when she hears about him crawling through the panel at Harry Wing's to play spook for Bennett."

"Not to speak of Fancy," Vixley added, grinning.

To them, Ringa entered. He slunk into a chair beside Vixley, smoothed down his tow hair, stroked his bristling mustache, and allowed his weak gray eyes to drift about the room.

"Well?" Madam Spoll queried, giving him a glance over her fat shoulder.

"I found him all right, and I've got something. I guess it's worth a dollar, Madam Spoll."

"Let's hear it, first," said Vixley.

"I done the insurance agent act, and I jollied him good." Ringa grinned, showing a hole in his mouth where two front teeth should have been.

"You jollied him," Vixley showed his yellow teeth. "Lord, you don't look it!"

"I did though," the pale youth protested. "I conned him for near an hour."

"You're sure he didn't get on to you?" Madam Spoll asked, regarding her head sidewise in the glass and patting the blue bow on her throat.

"Sure! I was a dead ringer for the real-thing agent, and I had the books to show for it. I worked him for an insurance policy."

"Well? What did he say?" Madam Spoll turned on him like a mighty gun.

"He was caught between two trains once on the Oakland Mole, and I guess he was squeezed pretty bad. He said it was a close call."

"That's all right," said Vixley; "we can trim that up in good shape, can't we, Gert?"

"It'll do for a starter. Give him a dollar."

"Anything more to-day?" Ringa asked, rising slowly.

"No; I'll let you know if I want you," said the Madam.

Ringa slouched out.

"I'd let that cool off a while till he's forgotten it," Vixley suggested.

"I'll make him forget it, all right," Madam Spoll returned. "That's my business. You do your part as well as I do mine and you'll be all right."

"It's only this first part that makes me nervous."

"Oh, he ain't going to catch _me_ in a trap. I got sense enough to put a mouse in first to try it."

She stood in front of the mirror in the folding-bed, arranging her hair, which had been wet and still glistened with moisture, holding her comb, meanwhile, in her mouth. Professor Vixley tilted back in his plush chair, his head resting against the grease-spot on the wall-paper which indicated his habitual pose.

"Now don't you go too fast," he said, pulling out a square of chewing-tobacco and biting off a corner. "This here is a-goin' to be a delicate operation. Payson ain't so easy as Bennett was. Bennett would believe that cows was cucumbers, if we told him so, but this chap is too much on the skeptic. We got to go slow."

"You leave me alone for _that_," Madam Spoll replied easily. "I guess I know how to jolly a good thing along. Has he got the money? That's all I want to know about him."

"He's got money all right. That's a cinch. I'm not in this thing for my health. What's more, he's got the writin' bug, and I can see a good graft in that."

"Well, I'll give it a try."

"No, you better keep your hands off that subject, Gertie. I can work that game better'n you. I got it all framed up how I can string him good. I'm goin' to make that a truly elegant work of art. All you got to do is to get him goin', and then steer him up against me."

The door-bell rang noisily up-stairs and Mr. Spoll's footsteps were heard going to answer the summons.

"I guess that's my cue," said Madam Spoll, smiling affably. "I wish I had more magnetism to-day." She shook her hands and snapped her fingers. "I can't stand so much of this as I used to. I can remember when I could get a name every time without fishing for it. But what I've lost in one way I have learned in another. I'm going to give him a run for his money, and don't you forget it."

Vixley smiled and rubbed his hands. "Go in and win, Gert. I guess I'll take a nap here on the lounge while I'm waitin' for you, and see if the Doc doesn't come in."

"All right," she replied; then marched up-stairs and went into action.

The upper parlor, where she received her patrons for private sittings, was a large room separated from the back part of the house by black walnut double doors. Upon the high-studded walls were draperies of striped oriental stuffs, caught up with tacks and enlivened by colored casts of turbaned Turks' heads, most of which were chipped on cheek and on chin, showing irregular patches of white plaster. Upon the mantel chaos reigned, embodied in a mass of minor decorations of all sorts, such as are affected by those who deem that space is only something to be as closely filled as possible. The furniture was cheaply elaborate and formally arranged, running chiefly to purple stamped plush and heavy woolen fringe. The silk curtains in the windows were severely arranged in multitudinous little pleats, fan shaped, drawn in with a pink ribbon at the center. There was scarcely a thing in the room, from the fret-sawed walnut whatnot in the corner to the painted tapestry Romeo upon the double doors, that an artist would not writhe at and turn backward. A little ineffective bamboo table in the center was made a feature of the place, but supported its function with triviality.

Mr. Payson had just entered, cold and blue from the harsh air outside. He bowed to the seeress.

She began with the weather, referring to it in obvious commonplaces, eliciting his condemnation of the temperature. She offered to light the gas-log and succeeded, during the conversational skirmish, in drawing from him the fact that he suffered from rheumatism, especially when the wind was north.

Madam Spoll allowed the ghost of a smile to haunt her face for a brief moment. "Lucky you ain't got my weight, it gets to you something terrible when you're fat. I ain't quite so slim as I used to be." She looked up from the grate coquettishly, marking the effect of her words.

"Now let's set down and get ready," she said, going over to the frail table and pressing her hands to her forehead. "I ain't in proper condition to-day; I've been working hard and my magnetism's about wore out. But I'll see what I can do."

He took a seat opposite her and waited. His attitude was benignly judicial; his eyes were fixed upon her, through his gold-bowed spectacles.

"Funny thing how different people are," she began. "Now, I get your condition right off. You ain't at all like the rest of the folks that come here. I get a condition of study, like. I see what you might call books around you everywhere--not account-books, but more on the literary. Books and sheep, you understand. Not live ones! I would say they was more on the dead sheep. Flat ones, too, with hair, like--queer, ain't it? Sounds like nonsense I suppose, but that's just what I get. They must be some mistake somehow." She drew her hand across her forehead and snapped the electricity off her finger-tips. Then she rubbed her hands and twisted her mouth. "Do you know what I mean?"

"Why, it might be wool perhaps; I have something to do with wool," he offered.

"Now ain't that strange? It _is_ wool, as sure's you're born! I can see what you might call skins and bales of wool. And I get a condition of business, too--but not what you might call a retail business. Seems like it was more on the wholesale."

"Yes, that's right," he assented, nodding.

"What did I tell you!" she exclaimed. "I do believe I may get something after all, though very often the first time ain't what you might call a success, and sitters are liable to get discouraged. I can tell you only just what my guides give me, you know, and sometimes Luella is pernickerty. She's my chief control. You know how it is yourself, for you'll be a man that knows women right down to the ground, and you've always been a favorite with the ladies, too."

"Oh, I never knew many women," he said modestly.

"It ain't the number I'm speaking of. It's the hold you had over 'em, specially when you was a young man. They was women who would do anything you asked them and be glad of the chance; now, wasn't they? Did you ever know of a party, what you might call a young woman, though not so very young, with the initial C?" She mumbled the letter so that it was not quite distinguishable.

"G?" he said. "Why, yes!--was that the first name or the last?"

"It seems like it was the first name, the way I get it--would it be Grace?"

This was, of course, a random "fishing test," and she got a bite.

"My wife's name was Grace."

She hooked the fact, noticing the tense, and let her line play out to distract his attention temporarily.

"It don't seem quite like your wife. Seems like it was another woman who you was fond of. Maybe it was meant for the last name. Sometimes my control does get things awfully mixed. Or, it might be a middle initial. You wait a minute and maybe I'll get it stronger."

"Oh, if it was the last name, I think I recognize it."

She had another line out and another bite, now, and played to land both, coaxing the truth gently from him.

"Yes, it's a last name, and she was terrible fond of you. She was in love with you for some time, you understand? And there was some trouble between you."

"There was, indeed!" Mr. Payson shook his head solemnly.

The hint now made sure of, she heightened it to make him forget that he himself had given the clue.

"I get a feeling of worry, and what you might call a misunderstanding. You didn't quite get along with each other and it made a good deal of trouble for you. You was what I might call put out, you understand? She's in the spirit now, ain't she?"

"Yes; she died a good many years ago."

Madam Spoll returned to her first fish and began to reel in. "Your wife's passed out, too, and Luella tells me she's here now. She says Grace was worried, too. But she's happy now and wants you to be. You was a young man then, and yet you have never got over it. You wasn't rightly understood, was you?"

Mr. Payson shook his head again. He was listening attentively.

"But it wan't your fault, do you understand? It was something that couldn't be helped. And sometimes when you think of this other lady you say to yourself, 'If she only knew! If she only knew!'"

"Yes, I wish she did. It really wasn't my fault."

Madam Spoll cast more bait into the pool.

"Now, would her given name be Mary, or something like that?"

"No--it was an uncommon name."

The medium persisted stubbornly.

"That's queer. I get the name of Mary very plain."

"My mother's name was Mary; perhaps you mean her?"

"It might be your mother, and yet it seems like it was a younger woman. Now, this lady I spoke of had dark hair, didn't she? or you might call it medium--sort of half-way between light and dark."

"No; she had white hair."

Another fish was on the hook. Madam Spoll had got what she wanted. This admission of Mr. Payson's, coupled with the fact Granthope had discovered, that Clytie had visited the crazy woman, identified the old man's first love, she thought, effectually. She kept this for subsequent use, however. It would not do, as Vixley had said, to go too fast.

"Then this Mary must be some one else," she said. "You may not recognize her now, but you probably will. I can't do your thinking for you, you know. It may possibly be that you'll meet her some day; at any rate, my guides tell me you must be careful and don't sign no papers for Mary. I don't know whether she's in the spirit or not. You may understand it and you may not. All I can do is to give you what I get."

Madam Spoll now became absorbed in a sort of reverie. When at last she emerged it was with this:

"I see your mother and your wife now, and I get the words, 'It's a pity Oliver couldn't marry her.' I don't know what they mean at all."

"I understand. I was intending to marry another woman, the one you spoke of just now, but something prevented."

"That must be it. My guide tells me that something dreadful happened, and it was what you might call hushed up and you separated from her."

"It was not my fault."

"I get a little child, too"--Mr. Payson grew still more absorbed. The medium noticed his instant reaction in eyes, mouth and hands. On the strength of that evidence, she took the risk of saying:

"The child was the lady's with the white hair."

"What about it?" demanded Mr. Payson.

"I see the child standing by a lady who grew gray very young, you understand. And now they're both gone. Was you ever interested in Sacramento or somewhere east of here?"

"Stockton?" he asked. "I lived there for a while."

"That's it. I see a river, and steamboats coming in, and there's the child again."

"A boy or a girl?"

She hesitated for a moment to dart a glance at him as swift as an arrow. Then she risked it. "A girl."

He drew a long breath. "I don't quite understand."

"It certainly is a little girl, and she's with the lady with the gray hair. But wait a minute. Now I get a little boy, and he's crying."

"Where is he?" came eagerly from Payson's lips.

"He's on this side. He's alive. I'll ask my guide." She plunged into another stupor, then shook herself, rubbed her forehead, wrung her hands.

"I can't get it quite strong enough to-day, but I'll find out later. He seems to be mixed up with you, some way, not in what you might call business, but more personally. You're worried about him."

Mr. Payson, with a shrug of his shoulders, appeared to disclaim this.

"Yes, you are! You may not realize it, but you are. The time will come when you understand what I mean. Now you're too much interested in other things. Your mind is way off--toward New York, like, or in that direction."

He looked puzzled.

"Maybe it ain't as far as New York, but it's somewhere around there, and I see books and printing presses. Do you have anything to do with printing?"

This he also disclaimed.

"Funny!" she persisted. "I get you by a printing-press looking at a book and then I see you at a table writing."

"I have done some writing, but it has never been printed."

"Well, it will be! My guide tells me that you have a great talent for literary writing, and it could be developed to a great success.

"Now," she added, "you let me hold your hands a while till I get the magnetism stronger. Just hold them firm--that's right. Lord, you needn't squeeze them _quite_ so hard!" She beamed upon him with obvious coquetry. "Now I'm going into a trance. I don't know whether Luella will come, or maybe little Eva. Eva's the cunningest little tot and as bright as a dollar. She's awful cute. You mustn't mind anything she says or does, though. Sometimes, I admit, she mortifies me, when sitters tell me what she's been up to. I've known her to sit on men's laps and kiss 'em and hug 'em, like she was their own daughter, but Lord, she don't know any better. She's innocent as a baby."

His face grew harder as she said this, but she proceeded, nevertheless, with her experiment, closing her eyes and sitting for a while in silence. Then her muscles twitched violently; she squirmed and wriggled her shoulders. Finally she spoke, in a high, squeaky falsetto, a fair ventriloquistic imitation of a child's voice.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Payson, I'm little Eva! I brought you some flowers, but you can't see 'em, 'cause they're spirit flowers. You don't look very well. Ain't you feelin' well to-day? I'm always well here, and it's lovely on this side."

He made no response. Madam Spoll's soft hand, obviously controlled by her spirit guide, moved up Mr. Payson's arm and patted his cheek. He drew back suddenly.

"My!" little Eva exclaimed. "You frightened me! What a funny man you are! Won't you just let me smoove your hair, once? I'd love to. Oh, I think you're horrid! I'm just doin' to slap your face--there!" Which she did quite briskly.

Mr. Payson loosened his hold with some annoyance.

"Well, I ain't doin' to stay if you don't love me," the shrill voice went on. "I don't _like_ men who don't love me. Good-by, old man, I'm doin'."

There was another wriggle on the part of the medium, after which a lower-toned voice said:

"How do you do! I'm Luella."

He watched the medium's blank, expressionless face as she spoke.

"Say, you ain't well, I can see that. Haven't you got a pain in your leg? Excuse me saying it, but I can feel it right there."

She touched him gently on the thigh.

"Oh, that's only a touch of rheumatism," he replied.

"No, it ain't," she said, "it's more serious than that. It's chronic, and it's growing worse. Sometimes it's so painful that you almost die of it, isn't it? I know where you got it; it come of an accident. I can see you in a big crowded house, like, and there's railroad trains coming and going, and you're crowded and jammed. You got internal injuries and a complication. You didn't realize it at the time, but it's growing worse every day. If you don't look out you'll pass out through it, but if you went right to work, you could be cured of it, before it gets too bad."

"What could I do about it?" he asked. "The doctors don't help me much."

"Of course they don't. You haven't been to the right ones. I was an Indian doctor, and I can see just what's the matter with you. You need a certain kind of herb I used to use when I was on the flesh-plane in Idaho."

"Can't you help me, then?"

"Oh, I've got to go now, they're calling to me. So good-by." Another wriggle and Madam Spoll was herself again.

"Well, what did you get?" she asked when she recovered.

"Why, don't you know?"

"No more'n a babe unborn," she said. "I was in a dead trance, and I never remember anything that happens. I hope little Eva didn't tease you any."

"Who is the other one--Luella?"

"Why, she's an Indian princess that passed out about ten years back. She's got a great gift of diagnosing cases. She's helped my sitters a good deal."

"She told me something about my trouble."

"You mean about the gray-haired lady or the child?"

"Oh, no, about my leg!"

"Did she, now? Well, what did I tell you! Seems to me you _do_ look peaked and pale, like you was enjoying poor health. I noticed it when you first come in. I don't believe your blood's good. Luella don't prescribe ordinarily, but she can diagnose cases something wonderful. If I should tell you how many doctors in this town send their patients to me to be diagnosed before they dare to treat them themselves, you'd be surprised. Why, only the other day a lady come in here that was give up by four doctors for cancer, and Luella found it was only a boil in her kidney. She went to a magnetic healer and was cured in a week. Now she's doing her own work and taking care of her babies, keeping boarders and plans to go camping this very month."

"Who was the doctor?" Mr. Payson asked, much impressed.

"Doctor Masterson. He's up on Market Street somewhere. Perhaps I've got a card of his around. I'll see if I can find it."

She walked over to the mantel and fussed among its dusty ornaments, saying, with apparent concern, as she rummaged:

"I don't know as I ought to send you to Doctor Masterson, after all. You see, he ain't a man I like very much, and few do, I find. He don't stand very well with the Spiritual Society, nor with anybody else that I know of. He ain't quite on the square, do you understand what I mean? To be perfectly frank, I think he's a rascal. He has a bad reputation as a man, but all the same, he's a good medium, nobody denies _that_, and he does accomplish some marvelous cures! If Luella said your complaint was serious, she knows, and it looks to me like you must go to Doctor Masterson or die of it, for if he can't cure you, nobody can. He's certainly a marvelous healer."

She found the card at last, and brought it over to Mr. Payson.

"Here it is, but you better not tell him I give it to you, for we ain't on very good terms, and I wouldn't want him to know that I was sending him business."

As Mr. Payson rose to go, the medium stopped him with a gesture.

"Wait a minute," she said, passing her hand across her forehead. "Grace is here again and she says: Tell him that we're doing all we can on the spirit plane to help him and we want him to cheer up, for conditions are going to be more favorable in a little while, say, by the end of September.'"

She paused a moment and then added:

"Who's Clytie? Would that be the gray-haired lady?"

"What about Clytie?" He was instantly aroused.

"It don't seem to me like she's in the spirit, exactly. She's on the material plane. Let's see if I can get it more definite. Oh, Grace says she's your daughter."

"That's true."

"What do you think of that? I get it very plain now. Grace says she's watching over Clytie and will help her all she can."

"Can't she tell me anything more?"

The medium became normal. "No, I guess that's about all I can do for you to-day. I think you got some good tests, specially when you consider it was the first time. When you come again I expect we can do better, and I'm sure we can find that little boy you was interested in."

Mr. Payson rose and stood before her, sedate, dignified, and said, in his impressive platform-manner:

"I don't mind saying that I consider this very remarkable, Madam Spoll, very remarkable. I shall certainly call again sometime next week. I am much interested. Now, what is the charge, please?"

"Oh, we'll only call this three dollars. My price is generally five, but I'm sort of interested in your case and I want you to be perfectly satisfied. You can just ring me up any time and make an appointment with me."