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.
"No, I can scarcely believe it's possible, myself," she replied,
controlling her agitation.
Blanchard Cayley ran on and on with his talk. Clytie gave him scant
attention, answering in monosyllables.
*CHAPTER V*
*THE RISE AND FALL OF GAY P. SUMMER*
Two hours after leaving Granthope's studio, Mr. Gay P. Summer had
"dated" Fancy Gray. Mr. Summer was a "Native Son of the Golden West";
he had, indeed, risen to the honorable station of Vice President of the
Fort Point Parlor of that ecstatic organization. He was, in his modest
way, a leader of men, and aspired to a corresponding mastery over women.
In all matters pertaining to the pursuit and conquest of the fair sex,
Mr. Summer was prompt, ingenious and determined. Before two weeks were
over he was able to boast, to his room-mate, of Fancy's subjection.
Fancy herself might equally well have boasted of his. At the end of this
time he was, at least, in possession of her photograph, six notes
written in a backward, slanting penmanship, twelve words to the damask
page, with the date spelled out, a lock of hair (though this was arrant
rape), and one gray suede, left-hand glove. These he displayed, as
trophies of the chase, upon the bureau of his bedroom and defended them,
forbye, from the asteistic comments of his room-mate, an unwilling and
unconfessed admirer of Gay P. Summer's power to charm and subdue.
In those two weeks much had been done that it is not possible to do
elsewhere than in the favored city by the Golden Gate. A Sunday
excursion to the beach was the fruit of his first telephonic
conversation. There are beaches in other places, indeed, but there is no
other Carville-by-the-Sea. This capricious suburb, founded upon the
shifting sands of "The Great Highway," as San Francisco's ocean
boulevard is named, is a little, freakish hamlet, whose dwellings--one
could not seriously call them houses--are built, for the most part, of
old street-cars. The architecture is of a new order, frivolously
inconsequent. According to the owner's fancy, the cars are placed side
by side or one atop the other, arranged every way, in fact, except
actually standing on end. From single cars, more or less adapted for
temporary occupancy, to whimsical residences, in which the car appears
only in rudimentary fragments, a suppressed motif suggested by rows of
windows or by sliding doors, the owners' taste and originality have had
wanton range. Balconies jut from roofs, piazzas inclose sides and
fronts, cars are welded together, dovetailed, mortised, added as ells at
right angles or used terminally as kitchens to otherwise normal
habitations.
Gay P. Summer was, with his room-mate, the proprietor of a car of the
more modest breed. It was a weather-worn, blistered, orange-colored
affair that had once done service on Mission Street. The cash-box was
still affixed to the interior, the platform, shaky as it was, still
held; the gong above, though cracked, still rang. There was a partition
dividing what they called their living-room, where the seats did service
for bunks, from the kitchen, where they were bridged for a table and
perforated for cupboards. There was a shaky canvas arrangement over a
plank platform; and beneath, in the sand, was buried a treasure of beer
bottles, iron knives, forks and spoons and wooden plates.
Here, unchaperoned and unmolested, save by the wind and sun, Gay P.
Summer and Fancy Gray proceeded to get acquainted. They made short work
of it.
Fancy's velvet cheeks were painted with a fine rose color that day. Her
hair looked well in disorder; how much better it would have looked, had
it kept its natural tone, she did not realize. Her firm, white line of
zigzag teeth made her smile irresistible, even though she chewed gum.
Her eyes were lambent, flickering from brown to green; her lower lids,
shaded with violet, made them seem just wearied enough to give them
softness. None of this was lost on Gay.
He, too, was well-developed, masculine, agile, with a juvenile glow and
freshness of complexion that rivaled hers. His dress was jimp and
artful, with tie and socks of the latest and most vivid mode. Upon his
short, pearl, covert coat, he wore a mourning band, probably for
decoration rather than as a badge of affliction. His eyes were still
bright and clear without symptoms of dissipation. His laughter was good
to hear, but, as to his talk, little would bear repetition--slangy
badinage, the braggadocio of youth, a gay running fire of obvious retort
and innuendo, frolic and flirtations. That Fancy appeared to enjoy it
should go without saying. She was not for criticism of her host and
entertainer that fine day. She let herself go in the way of gaiety he
led and slanged him jest for jest, for Fancy herself had a pert and
lively tongue.
Upon one point only did she fail to meet him. Not a word in regard to
her employer could he get from her. Again and again, Gay came back to
the subject of the palmist and his business secrets; Fancy parried his
queries every time. He tried her with flattery--she laughed in his
face. He attempted to lead her on by disclosing vivacious secrets of
his own life; his ammunition was only wasted upon her. He coaxed; he
threatened jocosely (she defended herself ably from his punitive kiss),
but her discretion was impregnable. She made merry at his expense when
he sulked. She tantalized him when he pleaded. Her wit was too nimble
for him and he gave up the attempt.
The stimulation of this first meeting went to Fancy's head. She laughed
like a child. She sang snatches from her vaudeville days and mimicked
celebrities. Gay dropped his pose of worldly wisdom and made shrieking
puns. They played like Babes in the Wood.
At seven o'clock, hungry and sun-burned, they walked along the beach to
the Cliff House and dined upon the glazed veranda, watching the surf
break on Seal Rocks. As they sat there in the dusk, haunted by an
elusive waiter, Gay waxed eloquent about himself, told of his high
office in the Native Sons, revealed the amount of his salary at the
bank, touched lightly upon his previous amours, bragged loftily of his
indiscretions at exuberant inebriated festivals, puffing magnificently
the while at a "two-bit" cigar.
Fancy paid for her meal by listening to him conscientiously, ejaculating
"No!" and "Yes?" or "Say, Gay, that's a josh, isn't it?" If her mind
wandered (Fancy was nobody's fool), he did not perceive it.
To their cocktails and California claret they now added a Benedictine,
and Gay grew still more confidential. The night fell, and the crowd
began to leave. They walked entirely round the hotel corridor, bought an
abalone shell split into layers of opalescent hues, then with a last
look at the sea-lions, barking in the surge, they walked for the train,
found a place in an open car and sat down, wedged into a hilarious
crowd, reveling in song and peanuts.
Disregarded was the superb view they passed. The train, skirting the
precipitous cliffs along the Golden Gate, commanded a splendor of
darkling water and tumultuous mountain distances, theatrical in beauty.
The sea splashed at the foot of the precipice beneath them. The hills
rose above their heads, the intermittent twinkle of lighthouses
punctuated the purple gloom. It was all lost upon them. Fancy's head
drooped to Gay's shoulder. He put his arm about her, cocking his hat to
one side that it might not strike hers as he leaned nearer. No one
observed them, no one cared, for every Jack had his Jill, and a simple,
primitive comradeship had settled upon the wearied throng. A baby
whined occasionally as the train lurched round the sharp curves of the
track. A riotous yell or two came from the misogynists of the smoking
compartment. Fancy did not talk. Gay's loquacity oozed away. He was
content to feel her breathing against his side.
There were telephone conversations often after that, then occasional
lunches down-town, when Fancy, always modishly dressed, drew many an eye
to her well-rounded, well-filled Eton jacket, her smart red hat, her
fresh white gloves and her high-heeled shoes. Gay was proud of her, and
he showed her off to his friends without caution. Fancy was nothing
loath. Occasionally they went to the theater, dining previously in
style at some popular restaurant, where Gay hoped that he might be seen
with her. To such as discovered them, he would bow with proud
proprietorship; or perhaps saunter over, on some flimsy pretext, to hear
his friends say, with winks and smiles:
"By Jove, that girl's all right, old man! She's a stunner. Say,
introduce me, will you?"
To which Gay would answer:
"Not on your folding bed! This is a close corporation, old man. I've
got that claim staked out, see? So long!" and walk away pleased.
At the theater, he always made a point of going out between the acts, in
order that his reentry might point more conspicuously at his conquest.
Afterward, at Zinkand's, having engaged a table beside which all the
world must pass, he would pose, apparently oblivious to the crowd,
talking to her with absorbed interest.
Fancy suffered the exhibition without displeasure. She had no objection
to being looked at. To make a picture of herself, to play the arch and
coquettish before a room of well-dressed folk was one of the things she
did best.
She was recognized occasionally and pointed out by one or another of
Granthope's patrons. "There she is; over behind you, in the white lace
hat, with a chatelaine watch--don't look just yet, though," was the
almost audible formula which Gay P. Summer learned to wait for. At such
times his chest swelled with pride. To walk into a restaurant with her
late at night and leave a wake of excited whispers behind him, was all
he knew of fame.
It did not escape Gay's notice, however, that Fancy's eyes were not
always for him. In the middle of his longest and most elaborate story,
she would often throw a surreptitious glance about the room, letting it
rest for an instant--a butterfly's caress--upon some admiring stalwart
stranger. Once or twice he detected the flicker of Fancy's smile, a
smile not meant for him. He found that, although his attention was all
for Fancy, Fancy's errant glances allowed nothing and nobody to escape
her observation. If he mentioned any one whom he had seen in the room,
Fancy had seen him, or more often her, first. Fancy always knew what
she wore, what it cost, what she was doing, how much she liked him and
what her little game was.
This sort of thing would have been an education for Gay, had he been
amenable to such teaching; but what women see and know without a tutor
he would and could never know. Wherefore, such dialogues as this were
common:
Fancy: "The brute! He's actually made her cry, now. She's a little
fool, though; it's good enough for her!"