Читать книгу The Heart Line - Gelett Burgess - Страница 13

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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?"

"Why, of course," said Granthope, and in his tone there was the ring of masculine assurance.

Clytie smiled and shook her head. "There are some things men never can know, no matter how clairvoyant they are," she said, looking away.

He did not follow this up, but arose to leave. "I'm afraid you have a very poor opinion of me, Miss Payson," he said, "but I do feel complimented by your frankness. Perhaps I shall merit it—who knows?" It was his turn to address the distance, and, in spite of his consciousness of an histrionic effect, his own words sounded curiously in his ears; they seemed premonitory. He shook himself free from her influence again. She had controlled the situation from the first word; he had only made a series of mistakes. It all confirmed his first estimate of her: that she was very well worth his while, but that her capture would be difficult.

Clytie, too, had arisen. Her mood had lightened, and her sense of humor had returned. "I hope I haven't been either tragic or absurd," she said, smiling. "I'm not always so serious, Mr. Granthope. The next time I meet you I'll probably be more conventional."

"Then I may see you again?"

"I doubt if you can help it."

"I shall certainly not try to!" Then he paused. "You mean—?"

"Yes!"

There was something delightful to him in this rapid transfer of wordless thought. It again established an intimacy between them. That she acknowledged such a relation by anticipating another meeting, an inevitable one, charmed him the more. He might win, after all, with such assistance from her. Her power of intuition aroused his curiosity—he longed to experiment with it. She was a new plaything which he had yet to learn to handle. Before, he had dominated her easily enough; he might do so again.

"Miss Payson," he said, "won't you come down to my studio again sometime? I'd like to make a more careful examination of your hand, and perhaps I can help you in developing your psychic sense."

"Oh, no, thank you. Really, I can't come again—I shall be pretty busy for a while—I have to go to the Mercantile Library every afternoon, looking up material for my father's book—and, after all, I got what I wanted."

"What did you want?"

"Partly to see you."

He bowed. "Curiosity?"

"Let's call it interest."

"You had no faith, then, in my palmistry?"

"Very little."

"Yet you acknowledge that I told you some things that were true?"

"Haven't I told you several things about yourself, too?"

"I'd like to hear more."

"Oh, I've said too much, already."

"Let's see. That I am more or less of a villain—"

"But a most interesting one!"

"That I have met you before—"

"Not perhaps 'met'—"

"That Fancy Gray is in love with me—"

"Oh, I didn't say that!"

"But you suspect it?"

"If I did, it was impertinent of me. It's none of my business."

"Well, you won't come again—you've quite satisfied your curiosity by seeing me?"

"Quite. I've confirmed all my suspicions."

"What were they?"

Clytie laughed. "Really, you're pushing me a little too hard, Mr. Granthope. I'd be glad to have you call here, sometime, if you care to. But my psychic powers are quite keen enough already. They rather frighten me. I want them only explained. As I say, it's embarrassing, sometimes. I hate to speak of what I feel—it's all so groundless and it sounds silly."

"You know more, then, than you mention?"

"Oh, much!"

"About me, for instance?"

"Yes. But it's vague and indefinite. It needn't worry you."

"Even though you disapprove?"

She laughed again. "You may take that as a compliment, if you like."

He nodded. "It is something that you care."

"I'm mainly curious to see what you'll do—"

"Oh, you're expecting something, then?"

"I'm watching to see. I confess I shall watch you. I said that you interested me—that's what I mean. You're going to—well, change."

As she stood between him and the light her soft hair showed as fine and crisp as spun glass. Her lips were sensitively curved with a flitting smile, her eyes were dreamy again. Everything about her bespoke a high spiritual caste, but, to Granthope, this only accented the desirability of her bodily self—it would make her the greater prize, unlike anything he had, so far, been able to win. He had an epicure's delight in feminine beauty, and he knew how its flavor should be finely tinctured by mind and soul; even beauty was not exciting without that, and of mere beauty he had his fill. Besides, she had unexpected reserves of emotion that he was continually tempted to arouse. But so far he had hopelessly misplayed his part, and he longed to prove his customary skill with women.

"Well," he said finally, offering his hand, "I hope I'll be able to satisfy you, sooner or later. I'll come, soon, for a report!"

"Oh, my mood may have changed, by that time."

He gave her the farewell amenities and went down the path to the gate. There he turned and saw her still watching him. He waved his hat and went down the steps, his mind restless with thoughts of her.

Clytie remained a while in the arbor. The fog had begun to come in now with a vanguard of light fleecy clouds riding high in the air, closing the bay in from all sides. The massive bank behind followed slowly, tinted with opal and rose from the setting sun. It settled down, shutting out her sight of the water, and its cohorts were soon scurrying past her on their charge overland from ocean to harbor. The siren at Point Bonita sighed dismally across the channel. It soon grew too cold to remain longer in the garden, and she went into the house shivering, lighted an open fire in the library and sat down.

For half an hour she sat there in silence, inert, listless, lost in thought, her eyes on the blurred landscape mystic with driving fog. The room grew darker, illuminated only by the fitful flashes of the fire. Her still, relaxed figure, fragile and delicate as an ivory carving, was alternately captured and hidden by the shadow and rescued and restored by the sudden gleam from the hearth. She had not moved when her father's step was heard in the hall. He came in, benignly sedate. His deep voice vibrated through the room.

"Well, Cly, dreaming again?"

She started at the sound and came out of her reverie to rise and greet him affectionately. He put down some books and a package of papers and lighted the chandelier, exchanging commonplaces with her—of her bookbinding work, which she confessed to have shirked; of the weather, with a little of old age's querulous complaint of rheumatic touches; of the black cat, which was their domestic fetish and (an immortally interesting topic to him) of the vileness and poisonous quality of San Francisco illuminating gas. His voice flowed on mellifluously with unctuous authority, as he seated himself in his arm-chair beneath the lamp, shook out his evening paper and rattled its flapping sheets.

Clytie evinced a mild interest in his remarks, smiled gently at his familiar vagaries, answering when replies should be forthcoming, in her low, even, monotonously pitched tones. She questioned him perfunctorily about the book he was writing, an absorbing avocation with him, warding off his usual disappointment at her lack of sympathy by involving herself in a conversational web of explanation regarding Foreign Trade Expansion, Reciprocal Profits and The Open Door in the Orient.

"There's not much use working on it at the office," he concluded. "I'm too liable to interruptions."

"Who interrupted you to-day?" she asked.

"Oh, there was a queer chap in this afternoon, an insurance solicitor; Wooley, his name was. I told him I didn't want an accident policy, but I happened to tell him about that time on the Oakland Mole, when I got caught between two trains in the Fourth of July crush—you remember? and he told me about all the narrow escapes he ever heard of, trying to get me to go into his company. Funny dog he was. He kept me laughing and talking with him for an hour. Then Blanchard came in. He says he's coming around to-night." He hesitated and scanned her intently through his gold-bowed glasses, under his bushy brows. "I hope you will treat him well, Cly."

Her face grew serious and her sensitive lips quivered, as she said:

"Why do you like Mr. Cayley so much, father?"

"Why, he's a very intelligent fellow, Cly; I don't know of another young man of his age who is really worth talking to. He knows things. He has a broad outlook and a serious mind. He's the kind of young man we need to take hold of political and commercial reform. I tell you, the country is going to the dogs for lack of men who are interested in anything outside of their own petty concerns. Why, he's the only one I know who really seems interested in oriental trade and all its development means to the Pacific slope. That's remarkable, considering he isn't himself connected with any commercial enterprise. I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have him to discuss my subject with. He seems to be genuinely interested in it. I wish you were as much so, Cly!"

Clytie turned away, smiling somewhat ironically, an uncommon expression for her engaging features.

"You know," she said slowly, "that I don't quite trust him."

"Why, you two have been friends long enough, you should know him better by this time. You're intimate enough with him."

"Oh, it's only a feeling I have. You know I have my intuitions—but what friendship there is has been of his seeking."

"He's all right, Cly," her father said dictatorially. "I haven't lived in the West for fifty years without knowing something of men. I do want you to learn to appreciate him. He's got a future before him and he is certainly fond of you. You know, if anything did come of it, I would—"

Clytie arose abruptly. "I think dinner's almost ready, father, and I'm hungry. Are you ready?"

She was imperious, holding her tawny head erect, her chin high, her hands clasped behind her back, the willowy suppleness of her body now grown rigid. Mr. Payson sighed resignedly, and allowed a moment's silence to speak for him; then, finding that his daughter's attitude continued to dominate the situation, he, too, arose, patted her cheek and shook his head. This pantomime coaxed forth a gracious smile from her. He took his manuscripts and left to go up to his room. Clytie remained at the window till he returned.

They had nearly finished their dinner, when, after a casual dialogue, she remarked, without looking at him:

"Father, do you remember anything about an old crazy woman who lived down south of Market Street somewhere, years ago—in a cheap hotel, I think it was?"

He started at her question and his voice, ordinarily so calm and so mellow, quavered slightly.

"What do you mean? Who was she?" he asked earnestly.

"That's what I want to know," Clytie said, stirring her coffee.

"What do you know about her?"

"Why—I went to see her once."

"You went to see her? When?"

"Then you did know her!"

Mr. Payson spoke cautiously, watching his daughter. "I have heard about her, yes, but I never knew you had been there. How in the world did that happen? It must have been a long time ago." He stared as if he could scarcely believe her assertion.

"Mother took me there once or twice. It's almost the first thing I remember."

"She did? She never told me! It's strange you have never mentioned it before."

"Perhaps I oughtn't to mention it now. I thought, somehow, that she wouldn't want me to tell you about it."

His tone now was disturbed, anxious, pitched in a higher key.

"Why shouldn't you speak of it? What difference could it possibly make? I remember that woman, yes. She was not old, though. Do you recall her well? You were very young then."

"I can almost see her now. She had white hair and black eyebrows, with a vertical line between them; she was pale, but with bright red lips. She wore a strange red gown. I think she must have been very beautiful at one time. Who was she, father?" Clytie sent a calm, level glance at him.

"Oh, she was a friend of your mother's. Your mother and I used to keep track of her and help her, that's all."

"Was she poor, then?"

"No, she wasn't. That was the queer part of it. She had considerable ability and actually carried on a real estate business, though she was pretty mad. She had lucid intervals, though, when she was as reasonable as any one."

"What became of her?"

"She died, I think, of heart disease. It must have been the same year your mother died, if I remember rightly."

"What was her name?"

Mr. Payson grew more nervous at this questioning, but he replied, "They called her Madam Grant, I believe. How did you happen to bring up the subject after all these years, Cly?"

It was her turn to be embarrassed. "Well—I've recalled that scene occasionally, and wondered about it—it has always been a mystery I couldn't explain, and I never dared talk about it. Of course, it's only one of those vivid early pictures of childhood, but it has always seemed very romantic."

"It was a strange situation," Mr. Payson replied. "She was a very unfortunate woman and I was sorry for her. I never would have permitted you to go, if I had known, of course, but perhaps your mother knew best." He dropped his chin upon his hand. "Yes, I'm glad you went, now. What impression did she make on you?"

"I only remember thinking how beautiful she must have been."

"Yes," Mr. Payson's voice was almost inaudible. He pushed his chair back, rose and went into the library. Clytie followed him.

"Are you going out to-night, father?"

"Yes, I've got some business to attend to."

"In the evening?" she raised her brows.

"Oh, I'm only looking up something—for my book." He turned away to avoid her gaze.

"Oh!" She sat down and took up a book without questioning him further. Soon after, the front doorbell rang and Mr. Cayley was shown in by the Chinese servant.

Blanchard Cayley was well known about town, for he had a place in many different coteries. By his birth he inherited a position in a select Southern set that had long monopolized social standing and looked scornfully down upon the upstart railroad aristocracy and that nouveau riche element which was prominent chiefly through the notoriety conferred by the newspapers. Blanchard Cayley's parts gained him the entrée, besides, to less conventional circles, where his wit and affability made him a favorite. He belonged to two of the best clubs, but his inclinations led him to dine usually at French or Italian restaurants, where good-fellowship and ability distinguished the company. He wrote a little and knew the best newspaper men and all the minor poets in town. He drew a little, and was familiar with all the artists. He accounted himself a musical critic and cultivated composers. He knew San Francisco like a rat, knew it as he knew the intricacies of French forms of verse, as well as he knew the architecture of music and the history of painting. He had long ceased his nocturnal meanderings "down the line" from the Hoffman Bar to Dunn's saloon, but he occasionally took a post-graduate course, of sorts, to see whether, for the nonce, the city was wide open or shut. He had discovered the Latin Quarter, now well established as a show-place for jaded pleasure-seekers, and had played bocce with the Italians in the cellars of saloons, before the game was heard of by Americans. He had found the marionette theater in its first week, traced every one of Stevenson's haunts before the Tusitala had died in Samoa, knew the writings of "Phoenix" almost by heart, and had devoured half the Mercantile Library. Tar Flat and the Barbary Coast he knew as well as the Mission and North Beach, and as for Chinatown, he had ransacked it for queer jars, jade and hand-made jewelry, exhausting its possibilities long before San Franciscans had realized the presence, in that quarter, of anything but an ill-smelling purlieu of tourists' bazaars.

He had "discovered" women as well—women, for the most part, whose attractions few other persons seemed to appreciate. His last find was Clytie Payson—a much more valuable tribute to his taste than any heretofore. He had devoted himself assiduously to her, and it was his boast that he could remember the hat she wore when he first saw her, ten years before. His pursuit of her had been eccentric. Cayley was mathematical and his methods were built upon a system. During the first years of their acquaintance he alternated months of neglect with picturesque arrivals on nights so tempestuous and foul that his presence would be sure to be counted as a flattering tribute, and would outweigh, with his obvious devotion, the previous languor of his pursuit. This was a fair sample of the subtlety of his psychological amours, for Blanchard Cayley was not of the temperament to run across the room and kiss a girl with verve and ardor. He led, however, an intense mental life; there he was a creature of enthusiasms and contempts, capable of no intermediate emotion.

What else was true of his character it would be necessary to determine from the several ladies of his choice whom he kept carefully apart, recipients of his subdivided confidence. Blanchard Cayley did not introduce female contemporaries.

He wore a carefully trimmed, reddish, Vandyke beard, with a drooping mustache; his hair curled a bit effeminately. Large blue eyes, the well-developed nose of the hobbyist, hands of a sixteenth-century gentleman, aristocratic, well-kept, soft. To-night he was in half-dress—dinner jacket and gold studs, an inch wide stripe upon his trousers—this under a yellow mackintosh and cricket cap, in strict accordance with his own ideas of form.

Mr. Payson was in the library still busy with his manuscript when he entered. The two shook hands. Blanchard's manner had in it something of a survival of the old school. He was never awkward, yet never bombastic. Suave, rather, with a semi-humorous touch that relieved his courtesy of anything solemn. He smiled, showing his teeth, saying, with an appearance of great interest,

"Well, Mr. Payson, I see you're still at it. How's The Open Door in the Orient?"

"Oh, getting on," said Mr. Payson. "I want to read you my last chapter when I get a chance. I think you'll like it."

Cayley had been successful in appearing to listen, and at the same time pay his respects to Clytie, whose hand he did not let go without a personal pressure in addition to the visible greeting. He kept it an unpleasant half-second longer than had Granthope. She freed herself with a slight gesture of discomfort. "Perhaps I'd better go up-stairs and leave you men alone to talk it over," she suggested.

"Certainly not," said her father. "I'll wait until some other time, only I thought Blanchard would be interested."

"Indeed, I am," Cayley protested. "I'm very anxious to hear your opinion about gold, too. I have something to suggest, myself. Oh!" He delved into his breast pocket. "Here are some notes on the history of the trade dollar, Mr. Payson. You know I was speaking of it. I've been looking up the subject at the mint and at the library for you; I think it might give you some ideas."

Mr. Payson took the paper eagerly and pushed up his spectacles to examine it. "Thank you; thank you very much. I'll be glad to look it over. It's a pleasure to find any one nowadays who's so interested in what is going to be a very vital question. You'll find my cigars here, somewhere. Cly, you go and find the box, won't you?"

As Clytie disappeared in the direction of the dining-room, he added, "You must humor her, Blanchard, she's a bit skittish. Don't force her hand and I think you'll bring her around."

"Thanks for the tip, but I have my idea," was the reply. "It's only a question of time when I shall be able to produce the psychological condition I want."

Mr. Payson shook his head dubiously. "I don't know. That isn't the way we went about it when I was young. We didn't bother much with psychology then. We had emotions to attend to."

"Oh, love-making is just as much a science as anything else, and there is no reason why it shouldn't progress. There are modern methods, you know; it's only a form of hypnotism." He smiled blandly.

When he and Clytie were alone—a situation she seemed to delay as much as possible—Cayley sat down opposite her with an ingratiating, disarming smile. He was neither eager nor impressive. He was sure of himself. It did not, as he had said, seem to matter a great deal about her emotions; he scarcely considered her otherwise than as a mind whose defenses he was to overthrow in an intellectual contest. He began with elaborate circumlocution.

"Well, I've discovered something."

Her delicate eyebrows rose.

"It is a curious botanical fact that there are four thousand lamp-posts in the city of San Francisco."

"Why botanical?"

"That is just what I expected you to ask."

"Then I'll not ask it." She was already on the defense.

"But you did!"

"Well?" She appeared to resent his tone.

"Now, see here!" He laid his right forefinger to his left palm. "Suppose a Martian were visiting the earth. He wouldn't at first be able to distinguish the properties of things. So, seeing these four thousand lamp-posts, he might consider them as a part of the Terrene flora—queer trees."

It was like a game of chess, and it was evident that she could not foresee his next move. The detour was too complicated. She seemed, by her attitude, to be on her guard, but allowed him, with a nod of assent, to proceed.

"Now, suppose you have the Martian, or let us call it the uncorrelative point of view. Suppose you use brain-cells that have hitherto been quiescent or undeveloped."

"I don't exactly follow." Her attention wandered.

He probed it. "Suppose I should get up and kiss you."

She awoke suddenly.

"You see what I mean now?" he continued. "You exploded a new cell then. You gained a new point of view with regard to me. Don't be afraid. I'm not going to kiss you."

"Indeed, you're not!" Her alarm subsided; her resentment, rising to an equal level, was drawn off in a smile at the absurdity of the discussion.

He went on: "But you must acknowledge that I have, at least, produced a psychological condition. I'm going to use that new cell again." He waited for her answer.

"Dear me!" she exclaimed at last. "We're getting very far away from the lamp-posts. I'm quite in the dark."

He proceeded: "My character is lighted by four thousand lamp-posts also."

"Ah, I see! You want me to regard them as botanical facts. I, as a supposititious Martian, with this wonderful new cell, am to perceive in you something that is not true?"

"No, for in Mars, the lamp-posts, we will suppose, are vegetables—not mechanical objects."

"A little more light from the lamp-posts, please."

"They are emotions, alive and growing. They have heat as well as light, in spite of their subtleties. I want you to perceive the fact that my methodical nature shows that I have a determined, potent stimulus—that I have energy—that I am in earnest."

She seemed to sniff the danger now and stood at gaze. He went on:

"I shall keep at the attempt until you do look at me in this way—till I've educated these dormant cells."

"If you are leading up to another proposal," Clytie said, "I must say I admire your devotion to method, but it is time thrown away."

He took this calmly enough. He took everything calmly; but he did not abate his persistence. "I'm not leading up to a proposal so much as I am to an acceptance."

Clytie shrugged her shoulders. "You'll be telling me you're in love with me next."

"Do you doubt it?"

"A half-dozen proposals have not convinced me."

"Seven," he corrected. "This is the eighth."

"How long do you intend to keep it up?"

"Until I produce in your mind a psychological condition which will convince you that I'm in earnest, that I am sincere, that I am the man for you. Then I shall produce an emotional reflex—it's sure to follow. It may come to-night and it may come next year. Sooner or later circumstances will bring about this crystallization. Some shock may help; it may be a simple growth. I am sure to win you in the long run. I'm bound to have you, and I will, if I have to make a hundred attempts. You can't dismiss me, for I'm an old friend and you need me. I have educated you, I have broadened your horizon. You see, I am playing with my cards on the table."

"But without trumps." Clytie stifled a yawn.

"Meaning, I suppose, that I have no heart? Clubs may do. I rely upon your atavism."

"I suppose you have as much heart as can be made out of brain."

"What if I say that I'm jealous? Will that prove that I have a heart?"

"Oh, you're too conceited ever to be jealous."

"But I am! I'll prove it. I happen to know that that palmist person, Granthope, was here this afternoon and you spent half an hour with him. How's that?"

"How do you know?" She awoke to a greater interest.

"You don't seem to realize that I make it my business to know all about you. This came by accident, though. I was on the Hyde Street car and I saw him get off and come in here. I waited at the end of the road till he went back. Now, what if I should tell your father that you have been entertaining a faking palmist here, on the sly?" He leaned back and folded his hands.

Clytie rose swiftly and walked to the door without a look at him.

"Father," she called, "Mr. Cayley has something to say to you."

"Never mind," Cayley protested. "That was merely an experiment."

Mr. Payson, in overcoat and silk hat, thrust a mildly expectant head in the room.

"It was only about the trade dollar business," said Cayley. "I'll tell you some other time."

Mr. Payson withdrew, scenting no mischief, and Clytie sat down without a word.

"Thought you'd call my bluff, did you?" said Cayley, unruffled. "I like spirit!"

"If you don't look out you'll succeed in boring me." Clytie's manner had shown an amused scorn rather than resentment. She was evidently not afraid of him.

"You're fighting too hard to be bored," he remarked coolly. He added, "Then you are interested in him, are you?"

"I am." Clytie looked him frankly in the face.

"Why?" he asked.

"I've heard a lot about him and he appeals to my imagination. I scarcely think I need to apologize for it. Have you any objection to my knowing him?"

"I'd rather you wouldn't get mixed up with him; since he's been taken up the women are simply crazy about him, as they always are about any charlatan. They're all running after him and calling on him and ringing him up at all hours. Why, Cly, they actually lie in wait for him at his place; trying to get a chance to talk to him alone. I don't exactly see you in that class, that's all. You can scarcely blame me."

"Oh, I haven't rung him up yet," said Clytie, "but there's no knowing what I may do, of course, with all my unexploded brain-cells."

"How did he happen to come here, then?"

"He came to see me, I suppose."

Cayley accepted the rebuff gracefully. "Well, in another month, when some one else comes along, people will drop him with a thud. He's a nine days' wonder now, but he's too spectacular to last. This is a great old town! We need another new fakir now that the old gentleman in the Miller house has stopped his Occult Brotherhood in the drawing-room and his antique furniture repository in the cellar. I haven't heard of anything so picturesque since that Orpheum chap caught the turnips on a fork in his teeth, that were tossed from the roof of the Palace Hotel. I suppose I'll have a good scandal about Granthope, pretty soon, to add to my collection."

Clytie accepted the diversion, evidently only too glad to change the subject. "What collection?" she asked.

"My San Francisco Improbabilities. I've got a note-book full of them—things no sane Easterner would believe possible, and no novelist dare to use in fiction."

"Oh, yes, I remember your telling me. What are they? One was that house made entirely of doors, wasn't it?"

"Yes, the 'house of one hundred and eighty doors' at the foot of Ninth Street. Then, there is the hulk of the Orizaba over by the Union Iron Works, where 'Frank the Frenchman' lives like a hermit, eats swill and bathes in the sewage of the harbor. Then there's 'Munson's Mystery' on the North beach—nobody has ever found out who Munson is. And Dailey, the star eater of the Palace Hotel—he used to have four canvas-back ducks cooked, selected one and used only the juice from the others; he ordered soup at a dollar a plate; and he had a happy way of buying a case of champagne with each meal, drinking only the top glass from each bottle."

Clytie laughed now, for Cayley was in one of his most amusing and enthusiastic moods. "Do you remember that tramp who lived all summer in the Hensler vault in Calvary Cemetery?"

"Yes, but that isn't so impossible as Kruger's castle out in the sand-hills by Tenth Avenue. It's a perfect jumble of job-lot buildings from the Mid-winter Fair, like a nightmare palace. I went out there once and saw old Mother Kruger, so tortured with rheumatism that she had to crawl round on her hands and knees. She had only one tooth left. The old man is one of the last of the wood-engravers and calls himself the Emperor of the Nations. He has resurrected Hannibal and an army of two hundred thousand men; also he revived Pompeii for three days. He wanted to bring Mayor Sutro back to life for me, but I wouldn't stand for it."

Cayley swept on with his anecdotes. "Who would believe the story of 'Big Bertha,' who buncoed all the swellest Hebrews in town, and ended by playing Mazeppa in tights at the Bella Union Theater? Who has written the true story of Dennis Kearney, the hack-driver, who had his speeches written for him by reporters, and went East with a big head, unconsciously to plagiarize Wendell Phillips in Fanueil Hall? Or of 'Mammy' Pleasant, the old negress who had such mysterious influence over so many millionaires—who couldn't be bribed—who died at last, with all her secrets untold? There's Romance in purple letters!

"What do you think of a first folio Shakespeare, the rent-roll of Stratford parish, and a collection of Incunabula worth thirty thousand dollars, kept in the deserted library on Montgomery Street in a case, by Jove, without a lock! What's the matter with Little Pete, the Chinaman, jobbing all the race-tracks in California? Who'd believe that there are streets here, within a mile of Lotta's fountain, so steep that they pasture cows on the grass?"

"Then there's Emperor Norton, and the Vigilance Committee, and all the secrets of the Chinatown slave trade," Clytie contributed, with aroused interest.

"Oh, I'm not speaking of that sort of thing. That's been done, and the East and England think that Romance departed from here with the red-shirted miner. Everybody knows about the Bret Harte type of adventure. It's the things that are going on now or have happened within a few years—like finding that Chinese woman's skeleton upside down, built into the wall of the house on the corner of Powell and Sutter; like Bill Dockery, the food inspector, who terrorized the San Bruno road, like a new Claude Duval, holding up the milkmen with a revolver and a lactometer, and went here, there and everywhere, into restaurants and hotels all over the peninsula, dumping watered milk into the streets till San Francisco ran white with it."

"Then there's Carminetti's," Clytie recalled, now. "That's modern enough, and typical of San Francisco, isn't it? I mean not so much what's done there, as the way they do it. I've always wanted to go down there some Saturday night and see just what it's like."

"I wouldn't want you to be seen there, Cly, it wouldn't do." Cayley shook his head decidedly.

"Why wouldn't it do?"

"It's a little too lively a crowd. You'd be disgusted, if they happened to hit things up a bit, as they often do."

"I don't see why I shouldn't be privileged to see what is going on. It's a part of my education, isn't it? It's all innocent enough, from what you say; it's at worst nothing but vulgar. I think I am proof against that."

"People would get an altogether wrong opinion of you. They'd think you were fast."

"I fast?" Clytie smiled. "I think I can risk that. I shouldn't probably want to go more than once, it's true. You don't know me, that's all. You don't believe that I can go from one world of convention to another and accept the new rules of life when it's necessary. It's just for that reason that I do wish to go—as, when I went to London, I wanted to see if I could accept all their slow, poky methods of business and transportation and everything and find out the reason of it all for myself, before I thought of criticizing it. I want to understand Carminetti's, if I can, and if you won't take me, I'll find some one who will."

"Granthope, perhaps?" Cayley suggested with irony.

"I have no doubt he'd understand my motives better than you do!"

"Well, it might be an interesting experiment. Miss Payson at Carminetti's—there's a San Francisco contrast for you!"

"You may add it to your list of Improbabilities. Study me, if you like, and put me in your list. You may find that I have a surprise or two left for you." She smiled to herself and threw back her head proudly.

"You do tempt me to try it," he said, coolly watching her. "You'd look as inconsistent there as those old French family portraits in that saloon out on the Beach—Lords of Les Baux, they were, I believe, administrators of the high justice, the middle and the low!

"And, oh!" he added, "that reminds me of another thing I found to-day while I was looking over a file of the Chronicle, digging up this trade dollar business. It was way back in 1877; a queer story, but I suppose it's true."

"What was it?" Clytie asked. The rays of the lamp shot her hair with gold sparks as she sat in a low chair, listening.

"Why, there was an old woman who was half crazy; she lived down south of Market Street somewhere in the most fearful squalor."

Clytie suddenly moved back into the shadow.

"Yes, yes,—what else?" She followed his words with absorbed attention.

"There was no furniture except a lot of boxes and a bookcase. And here's the remarkable thing: there was about two inches of rubbish and dirt matted down all over the floor, where she used to hide money and food and any old thing, wrapped in little packages. When she died, her stuff was auctioned off, and they found a trunk with a whole new wedding outfit in it. How's that?"

"What was her name?" Clytie asked breathlessly.

"I don't remember it. She was a sort of clairvoyant, I believe. There was a little boy lived with her, too. It seems he disappeared after she died. Ran away."

Clytie leaned forward again, her eyes wide open and staring. Her hands were tightly clasped together.

"A little boy?" she repeated.

"Why, that's what it said in the paper. Great story, isn't it?"

Clytie's breath came and went rapidly, as if she were trying to breathe in a storm, amidst the dashing of waves. The color went from her cheeks, her thin nostrils dilated. Then, retreating into the shade again, she managed to say:

"It certainly is romantic."

"No one would believe a thing like that could be true," he followed.