GREEK MEETS GREEK
Early on the evening when the Alstons had seen "The Zingara," Boye Mayer
walked up Kearney Street looking into florists' windows. A cigarette
depended from his lip, his opened overcoat disclosed the glossy whiteness
of a shield-like shirt bosom, his head was crowned by a shining top hat.
He was altogether a noticeable and distinguished figure.
He had been twice to the Albion and was going again this evening, having
already engaged the right-hand stage box. Now he was purporting to send
Pancha Lopez a third floral tribute and with it reveal his identity. The
two previous ones had been anonymous, but tonight her curiosity--roused
to a high pitch, or he knew nothing of women--would be satisfied. She
would not only know who her unknown admirer was, but she would see him
sitting in stately solitude in the right-hand box.
She had been a great surprise. Where he had expected to find an
overblown, coarse woman with the strident voice of the music hall and its
banal vulgarities, he had seen a girl, young, spontaneous, full of a
sparkling charm. He had heard enough singing to know that her voice,
fresh and untrained, had promise, and that the spirited dash of her
performance indicated no common gifts. Under any circumstances she would
have interested him; how much more so now when he knew of her affiliation
with a notorious outlaw! She was evidently a potent personality, lawless
and daring. The situation appealed to his slyly malign humor, she
confidently secure, he completely informed. It was a fitting sequel to
the picaresque adventure and he anticipated much entertainment from
meeting her, saw himself, with stealthy adroitness, worming his way
toward her guilty secrets.
A florist's window, a bower of blossoms under the gush of electric
lights, attracted him and he turned into the shop. The proprietor came
forward, ingratiatingly polite, his welcoming words revealing white teeth
and a foreign accent.
The gentleman wanted a large sheaf bouquet in two colors, red and
orange--certainly, and a Gallic wave of the hand indicated a marble slab
where flowers were ranged in funnel-shaped green vases. Looking over
them, the gentleman lapsed into a French so perfect that the florist
suggested Monsieur was of that nation, also his own. Monsieur neither
admitted nor denied the charge, occupied over the flowers. He was very
particular about them--perhaps the florist would understand better what
he wanted when he knew they were for Miss Lopez at the Albion and were
designed to match her gypsy dress.
Ah, perfectly--several vases were drawn forward--and over these the two
men talked of Miss Lopez and her admirable performance.
"A true artist," the florist thought, "young, and without training as
Monsieur can see. A Californian, a girl of the people, risen from
nothing. But no doubt Monsieur has already heard her history."
Monsieur was a stranger, he knew little of the lady, and, apparently
engrossed in his selection of the flowers, heard such facts in the career
of Pancha Lopez as the public were allowed to know. The florist ended the
biography with what should be--for the gentleman ordering so costly a
bouquet--the most notable item--Miss Lopez was a girl of spotless
reputation.
Monsieur looked surprised:
"Has no favored one, no lovers?"
The florist, combining a scarlet carnation with a sunset rose, shrugged
his shoulders, treating the subject with the lively gravity of the Gaul:
"None, Monsieur. It is known that many men have paid their court, but
no--good-day to you and out they go! She wants nobody--it is all work,
work, work. A good, industrious girl, very unusual when one considers her
beginnings. But being so, and with her talents, she will arrive. My God,
it is certain."
Monsieur appeared no longer interested. He paid for his bouquet, which
was to be sent to the stage door that evening, then wrote a message on a
card. This time the card bore no "swell sentiment;" the words were frank
and to the point:
"Why can't I know you? I want to so much. I am alone here and a stranger.
If you care to look me over and see if you think I'm worth meeting, I'll
be in the right-hand stage box tonight.
"BOYE MAYER,
"Argonaut Hotel."
As he walked to the Albion he thought over what he had heard. It was very
different from what he had expected to hear and increased his interest in
her. He had given her credit for a high artistic intelligence, but
evidently she possessed the other kind too. How else could she have
spread an impression of herself so unlike what she really was? A deep,
_rusee_ girl! He began to be very keen to meet her and see which of the
two would be the more expert in the duel of attack and parry.
The flowers and the note were delivered in the first entr'acte. With a
sliding rush Pancha was back on the stage, her eye glued to the peephole
in the curtain. What she saw held her tranced. Like Mark, her standards
suffered from a limited experience. That the effective pose was studied,
the handsome face hard and withered, the evening dress too showily
elegant, escaped her. She had never--except on the covers of
magazines--seen such a man.
The stage hands had to pull her away from the curtain and she went to her
dressing room with her cheeks crimson under the rouge and her eyes like
black diamonds. Upon his own stage, plumed, spurred and cloaked, romance
had entered with the tread of the conqueror.
After the second gift of flowers her curiosity was as lively as Mayer had
expected. But she was not going to show it, she was going to be cool and
indifferent till he made himself known. Then she contemplated a guarded
condescension, might agree to be met and even called upon; a man who
wrote such sentiments and gave such bouquets should not be treated with
too much disdain. But when she saw him, her surprise was so great that
she forgot all her haughty intentions. Gratified vanity surged through
her. At one moment she thrilled with the anticipation of meeting such a
personage, and at the next drooped to fears that she might disappoint his
fastidious taste.
That night she answered the letter, writing it over several times:
MR. BOYE MAYER,
DEAR FRIEND:
Thanks for the flowers. They're grand. I ain't ever before had such
beautys espechully the ones that matched my dress. I looked you over and
I don't think you're so bad, so if you still want to know me maybe you
can. I live in the Vallejo Hotel on Balboa Street and if you'd give
yourself the pleasure of calling I'll be there Tuesday at four.
Yours truly,
Miss PANCHA LOPEZ.
P. S. Balboa Street is in the Mission.
The next evening she received his answer, thanking her for her kindness
and saying he would come.
She prepared for him with sedulous care, not only her room and her
clothes, but herself. She was determined she would comport herself
creditably, would be equal to the occasion and fulfill the highest
expectations. She was going to act like a lady--no one would ever suspect
she had once waited on table in the Buon Gusto restaurant, or been a
barefoot, miner's kid. As she put on her black velveteen skirt and best
crimson crepe blouse, she pledged herself to a wary refinement, laid the
weight of it on her spirit. The only models she had to follow were the
leading ladies of the road companies she had seen, and she impressed upon
her mind details of manner from the heroines of "East Lynne" and "The
Banker's Daughter."
When four o'clock struck she was seated by the center table, a book
negligently held in one hand, her feet, in high-heeled, beaded slippers,
neatly crossed, and a gold bracelet given her by her father on her arm.
She took a last, inspecting glance round the room and found it entirely
satisfactory. On the table beside her a battered metal tray held a bottle
of native Chianti, two glasses and a box of cigarettes. In Pancha's world
a visitor was always offered liquid refreshment and she had chosen the
Chianti as less plebeian than beer and not so expensive as champagne. She
had no acquaintance with either wine or cigarettes; her thrifty habits
and care of her voice made her shun both.
Mayer recognized the room as a familiar type--he had been in many such
in many lands. But the girl did not fit it. She looked to him very
un-American, more like a Spaniard or a French midinette. There was
nothing about her that suggested the stage, no make-up, none of its bold
coquetry or crude allure. She was rather stiff and prim, watchful, he
thought, and her face added to the impression. With its high cheek bones
and dusky coloring he found it attractive, but also a baffling and
noncommittal mask.
He was even more than she had anticipated. His deep bow over her hand,
his deference, thrilled her as the Prince might have thrilled Cinderella.
She was very careful of her manners, keeping to the weather, expressing
herself with guarded brevity. A chill constraint threatened to blight the
occasion, but Mayer, versed in the weaknesses of stage folk, directed the
conversation to her performance in "The Zingara," for which he professed
an ardent admiration.
"I was surprised by it, even after what I'd heard. I wonder if you know
how good it is?"
Her color deepened.
"I try to make it good, I've been trying for six years."
He smiled.
"Six years! You must have begun when you were a child."
This was too much for Pancha. Her delight at his praise had been hard to
suppress; now it burst all bonds. She forgot her refinement and the
ladylike solemnity of her face gave place to a gamin smile.
"Oh, quit it. You can't hand me out that line of talk. I'm twenty-two and
nobody believes it."
Then _he_ laughed and the constraint was dissipated like a morning mist.
They drew nearer to the table and Pancha offered the wine. To be polite
she took a little herself and Mayer, controlling grimaces as he sipped,
asked her about her career. She told him what she was willing to tell;
nothing of her private life which she thought too shamefully sordid. It
was a series of jumps from high spot to high spot in her gradual ascent.
He noticed this and judged it as a story edited for the public, it
tallied so accurately with what he had heard already from the florist.
There was evidently a rubber stamp narrative for general circulation.
After she had concluded he made his first advance, lightly with an air
of banter.
"And how does it come that in this long, lonely struggle you've stayed
unmarried?"
A belated coquetry--Pancha climbing up had wasted no time on such
unassisting arts--stirred in her. She tilted her head and shot a look at
him from the sides of her eyes.
"I guess no one came along that filled the bill."
"Among all the men that must have come along?"
"Um-um," she stood her glass on the table, turning its stem with her long
brown fingers.
"The lady must be hard to please."
"Maybe she is."
Her eyes rested on the ruby liquid in the glass. The lids were fringed
with black lashes that grew straightly downward, making a semicircle of
little, pointed dashes on each cheek. He could not decide whether she was
embarrassed or slyly amused.
"Or perhaps she's just wedded to her art."
"That cuts some ice, I guess."
"Love is known to improve art. Haven't you ever heard that?"
"I shouldn't wonder. I've heard an awful lot about love."
"Only heard, never felt? Never responded to any of the swains that have
been crowding round?"
"How do you know they've been crowding round?"
He leaned nearer, gently impressive:
"What I'm looking at tells me so."
She met his eyes charged with sentimental meaning, and burst into
irrepressible laughter.
"Oh, _you_--shut up! I ain't used to such hot air. I'll have to open the
windows and let in the cold."
It was not what he had expected and he felt rebuffed. Dropping back in
his chair, he shrugged his shoulders.
"What can I say? It's not fair to let me come here and then muzzle me."
"Oh, I ain't going as far as that. But you don't have to talk to me that
way. I'm the plain, sensible kind."
He shook his head, slowly, incredulously.
"No, I've got to contradict you. Lips can tell lies but eyes can't.
You're a good many other things but you're not sensible."
"What other things?"
"Charming, fascinating, piquant, with a heart like a bright,
glowing coal."
She threw back her head and let her laughter, rich and musical, float out
on the room.
"Oh, listen to him! Wouldn't it make a dog laugh!" Then, swaying on her
chair, she leaned toward him, grave but with her eyes twinkling. "Mr.
Man, you can't read me for a cent. Right here," she touched her heart
with a finger tip, "it's frozen hard. I keep it in cold storage."
"Hasn't it ever been taken out and thawed?"
"Never has and never will be."
She swayed away from him, keeping her glance on his. For a still second
a strange seriousness, having no place in the scene, held them. She was
conscious of perplexity in his face, he of something wistful and
questioning in hers. She spoke first.
"You're very curious about me, Mr. Boye Mayer?"
She ought not to have said that and it was his fault that she did. She
was no mean adversary and that she had seen through his first tentatives
proved them clumsy and annoyed him. He smiled, a smile not altogether
pleasant, and rose.
"All men must be curious where you're concerned."
"Not as bad as you."
"Ah, well, I'm a child of nature. I don't hide my feelings. I'm curious
and show it. Do you know what makes me so?"
She shook her head, anticipating flatteries. But he did not break into
them as quickly as she had expected. Turning to where his hat lay he took
it up, looked at it for a moment and then, with his gray eyes shifting to
hers, said low, as if taking her into his confidence:
"I'm curious because you're interesting. I think you're the most
interesting thing I've seen since I came to San Francisco."
This was even more than she had hoped for. An unfamiliar bashfulness made
her look away from the gray eyes and stammer in rough deprecation:
"Oh, cut it out!"
"I never cut out the truth. But I'm going to cut out myself. It's time
for me to be moving on. Good-by."
His hand was extended and she put hers into it, feeling the light
pressure of his cool, dry fingers. She did not know what to say, wanted
to ask him to come again, but feared, in her new self-consciousness, it
wasn't the stylish thing to do.
"I'm real glad you called," was the nearest she dared.
He was at the door and turned, hopefully smiling.
"Are you?"
"Sure," she murmured.
"Then why don't you ask me to come again?"
"I thought that was up to you."
He again was unable to decide whether her coyness was an expression of
embarrassment or an accomplished artfulness, but he inclined to the
latter opinion.
"Right O! I'll come soon, in a few days. _Hasta manana_, fair lady."
After the door had closed on him she stood sunk in thought, from which
she emerged with a deep sigh. A slow, gradual smile curved her lips; she
raised her head, looked about her, then moving to the mirror, halted in
front of it. The day was drawing toward twilight, pale light falling in
from the bay window and meeting the shadows in the back of the room. Her
figure seemed to lie on the glass as if floating on a pool of darkness.
The black skirt melted into it, but the crimson blouse and the warm
pallor of the face and arms emerged in liquid clearness, richly defined,
harmoniously glowing. She looked long, trying to see herself with his
eyes, trying to know herself anew as pretty and bewitching.
Mayer walked home wondering. He was completely intrigued by her. Her
performance in "The Zingara" had led him to expect a girl of much more
poise and finish, and yet with all her rawness she was far from naive.
His own experience recognized hers; both had lived in the world's squalid
byways; he could have talked to her in their language and she would have
understood. But she was not of the women of such places, she had a clean,
clear quality like a flame. Daring beyond doubt, wild and elusive, but
untouched by what had touched the rest. He found it inexplicable, unless
one granted her unusual capacity, unsuspected depths and a rare and
seasoned astuteness. He had to come back to that and he was satisfied to
do so. It would add zest to the duel which had just begun.