Then she rose and bowed debonairly to Mrs. Maxwell and Miss Dean. "Good
night, ladies, this is where I disappear. I'm afraid you've impregnated
me with social aspirations. Watch for me at the Fortnightly!"
The collarless youth stretched a glass toward her in salutation and
sang: "Good-by, Dolly Gray!" There was a burst of laughter that drew
all eyes to Fancy Gray.
Cayley held her coat for her, and as she turned to him with thanks, a
sudden mad impulse stirred her; she audaciously put up her lips to be
kissed. He did not fail her. The ladies at the table looked on,
catching breath, stopping their talk. A waiter, passing, stood
transfixed. Every one watched. Then a cheer broke out and a clapping
of hands all over the restaurant.
Fancy Gray bowed to her audience with dignity, as if she were on the
stage. Then, with a comprehensive nod to her entertainers, she passed
demurely down the aisle between the tables. Every eye followed her.
At the counter she turned her head to see Blanchard Cayley still
standing by his place. She came hurriedly back as if drawn by some
magic spell, blushing hotly, with a strange look in her eyes. She
looked up at him as a little girl might look up at her father. The room
was hushed. It was too much for that audience to comprehend. The act
had almost lost its effrontery; the audacity had become, somehow,
pathos.
Fancy walked like a somnambulist, her eyes wide open, staring at
Blanchard. He had turned paler, but stood still, with his gaze fastened
upon her, reveling, characteristically, in a new sensation. The ladies
in his party did not speak. Nobody spoke. The room was like a
well-governed school at study hour, every eye fixed upon Fancy Gray.
Whatever secret emotion it was that drew her back, it was for its moment
compelling, casting out every trace of self-consciousness. She seemed to
show her naked soul. She reached him, and again he put his arms about
her and kissed her full on the lips. Again the tumult broke forth.
In that din and confusion she slipped back to the door. There was
another hush. Then the crowd gasped audibly and tongues were loosened
in a babel of exclamations. With a cry, some one pointed to the window.
There stood Fancy Gray, pressing through the glass, histrionically, one
last kiss to Cayley--and disappeared into the night. Half a dozen men
jumped up to follow her, and turned back to account for a new silence
that had abruptly fallen on the room.
Blanchard Cayley was still standing. He had snatched a wine-glass from
the table, and now, with a silencing gesture, he held it above his head.
He was perfectly calm, he had lost nothing of his usual elegance of
manner.
"I don't know who she is, but here's to her!" he called out to the
roomful of listeners. "Bottoms-up, everybody!"
He drank off his toast. Glasses were raised all over the room. Men
sprang upon their chairs, put one foot on the table and drank Fancy
Gray's health. Then the crowd yelled again.
In the confusion Mrs. Maxwell leaned to Clytie. "I don't know, my dear,
whether I'll dare to chaperon you _here_ again!" She herself was as
excited as any one there.
Frankie Dean's thin lips curled in a sneer. "Oh, they call this
Bohemia, don't they! Did you ever see anything so cheap and vulgar in
your life? I feel positively dirty!"
Cayley watched for Clytie's answer. It came with a jet of fervor.
"Why," she exclaimed, "don't you see it's real? It's _real_! It isn't
the way we care to do things, but they're all alive and human--every one
of them!"
"Bah! It's all a pose. They're pretending they're devilish."
"I don't care!" Clytie's eyes fired. "Even so, there's a live person
in each of them--they're just as real as we are. I never understood it
before. Look under the surface of it--there's blood there!"
"It's San Francisco!" said Cayley, "that explains everything. Oh, this
town!" He sat down shaking his head.
The old _patron_ bustled excitedly through the room.
"Take-a de foot off de table! Take-a de foot off de table!" he
protested. "You spoil the table clot'--you break-a de dishes! I don't
like dat! Get down, you! Get down!"
*CHAPTER VI*
*SIDE LIGHTS*
"Mrs. Chenoweth Maxwell would be very glad to see Mr. Francis
Granthope next Friday evening at nine o'clock for an informal
Chinese costume supper. Kindly arrive masked."
This invitation marked a climacteric in Granthope's social career. It
was supplemented by an explanation over the telephone that left no doubt
in the mind of the palmist as to the genuineness and friendliness of its
cordiality. He had appeared already at several assemblies of the
smarter set and had, by this time, a considerable acquaintance with the
fashionable side of town. Of the information thus acquired he had made
good use in his business. He had always gone, however, in his
professional capacity as a paid entertainer; and no matter how
considerately he had been treated, the fact that he was not present as a
guest had always been obvious. He was in a class with the operatic star
who consents to sing in private and maintains her delicate position of
unstable social equilibrium with sensitive self-consciousness. In his
rise from obscurity, at first, he had been pleased with such
invitations, seeing that they brought him money and an increasing fame.
He was now sought after as a picturesque and personable character.
Women evinced a fearful delight in his presence; they treated him
sometimes as if he were a handsome highwayman, tamed to drawing-room
amenities, sometimes as they treated those mysterious Hindus in robes
and turbans who occasionally appeared to prate of esoteric faiths in the
salons of the Illuminati.
Granthope's sense of humor and his cynical view of life, had, so far,
been sufficient to preserve his equanimity at the threshold of
fashionable society. His equivocal position was tolerable, for he knew
well enough what a sham the whole game was, and how artificial was the
social position which permitted a woman to snub him or patronize him in
public, and did not prevent her following him up in private. He had seen
ladies raise their eyebrows at his appearance in the Western Addition,
who had visited him for a chance to talk to him with astonishing
egotism.
There was a strain in him, however, the heritage of some unknown
ancestry, that, since meeting Miss Payson, began to give him more and
more discomfort in the presence of such company. He had risen above the
level of the mere professional entertainer, and had become fastidious.
Clytie had met him upon terms of equality. Her frankness had flattered
him, and her implied promise of friendship was like the opening of a
door which had, hitherto, always been shut to him.
Mrs. Maxwell's bid, therefore, was a distinct advance, and he welcomed
it, not so much because it unlocked for him a new sort of recognition,
as that it furthered the game he had in hand. He could scarce have
defined that game to himself. He was playing neither for position nor
money nor power--his sport was perhaps as purely intellectual as that of
chess, a delight in the pitting of his mind against others.
Mrs. Maxwell, with the tact of a woman of sensibility, had made it plain
to him that he was invited for his own sake, upon terms of hospitality.
As a lion, yes, she could not deny that. She confessed that she wished
to tell people that he was coming--but he would not be annoyed by
requests for entertainment. With another, he might have suspected that
this was only a subterfuge to avoid the necessity of paying him his
price, but Mrs. Maxwell's character was too well known to him for that
possibility to be entertained.
He set himself, therefore, to obtain a costume for the affair at the
"House of Increasing Prosperity," known to Americans as the shop of Chew
Hing Lung and Company. With the assistance of the affable and
discerning Li Go Ball, the only Chinese in the quarter who seemed to
know what he required, Granthope selected his outfit, a costume of the
character worn by the more prosperous merchant class of Celestials.
Granthope had fitted up the room next beyond his studio for a
bed-chamber and sitting-room, access to it being had through the heavy
velvet arras concealing the door between the two apartments. The place
was severely masculine in its appointments and order, but bespoke the
tasteful employment of considerable money. Here he had his library
also, for since his earliest youth he had been a great reader.
Prominent on its shelves were many volumes of medical books, and, to
offset this sobriety, the lives and memoirs of the famous adventurers of
history--Casanova, Cagliostro, Fenestre, Abbe Faublas, Benvenuto
Cellini, Salvator Rosa, Chevalier d'Eon.
A massive Jewish seven-branch candlestick illuminated the place this
evening, splashing with yellow lights the carved gilded frame of a huge
oval mirror, glowing on the belly of a bronze vase, enriching the depths
of color in the dull green walls, smoldering in the warm tones of the
great Persian rug on the floor, twinkling upon the polished surface of
the heavy mahogany table in the center of the room. But it was
concentrated chiefly upon the gorgeous oriental hues where his Chinese
costume was flung, flaming upon the couch. There the colors were
commingled as on an artist's palette, cold steel blue, pale lemon
yellow, olive green that was nearly old gold, lavender that was almost
pink in the candle-light, a circle of red inside the cap, and flashes of
pale cream-colored bamboo paper here and there.
He had already put on the silken undersuit, a costume in itself, with
its straight-falling lines and complementary colors. Fancy Gray was
helping him with the other garments, enjoying it as much as a little
girl dressing a doll, trying on each article herself first and posing in
it before the mirror.
First, she wrapped the bottom of his lavender trousers about his ankles,
over white cotton socks, tying them close with the silk bands, carefully
concealing the knot and ends as Go Ball had instructed him. She held
the black boat-shaped satin shoes for him to put on. Next she tied
about his waist the pale yellow sash so that both ends met at the side
and hung together in two striped party-colored ends. Then the short,
padded jacket, and over all this the long, steel-blue, brocaded silk
robe, caught in at the waist with a corded belt. Lastly the olive-green
coat patterned with brocaded mons containing the swastika, and with long
sleeves almost hiding the tips of his fingers. Upon its gold
bullet-shaped buttons she hung the tasseled spectacle-case and his ivory
snuff-box.
"Oh, Frank, I forgot!" said Fancy, as she paused with his wig of
horse-hair eked out with braided silk threads, in her hand. "Lucie was
here to-day."
Granthope was at the mirror, disguising himself with a long, drooping
mustache and thin goatee. He put down his bottle of liquid gum and
turned to her.
"What did she say?"
"Why, she said she didn't have time to wait, and didn't want to tell me
anything."
"Why didn't she write?"
"Said she was afraid to. You're to manage some way to see her to-night,
if you can, and she has a tip for you."
"H'm!" Granthope, with Fancy's assistance, drew on the wig, and clapped
over his black satin skullcap with its red coral button atop. Then he
paused again reflectively.
"It must be something important. If I can only get hold of some good
scandal in this 'four hundred' crowd I can have some fun with 'em."
"I should be afraid to trust these ladies' maids; they might give you
away any time, and then where'd you be? That would be a pretty good
scandal, itself." Fancy shook her head.
"Aren't they all in love with me?" he said, smiling grimly.
Fancy looked dubious. "That's just the trouble. 'Hell hath no fury like
a woman scorned.'"
Granthope now laughed outright. "Fancy, when you get literary you're
too funny for words."
She bridled, stuck out her little pointed tongue at him, and walked into
the front office, where she sat down to attend to some details of her
own work. At last she finished her writing and went to the closet to
put on her hat and jacket.
"Oh, Frank!" she called out.
"Yes, Fancy!"
"You don't think I'm jealous, do you?"
"Yes!" he laughed.
She appeared at the doorway and called again:
"Mr. Granthope!" He was busy, and did not answer.
"Mr. Granthope!"
He looked up, now, to see her put her thumb to her nose with a playfully
derisive gesture, such as gamins use.
He put his head back and laughed.
Then she looked at him seriously, saying, "When I am, you'll never know
it. I'm not afraid of ladies' maids. When you really get into your own
class it will be time enough for me to worry. But I wish you wouldn't
use those girls. They're all cats, and they'll scratch!"
She was standing before the mirror inside the closet door, with her hat
pin between her lips, adjusting her toque to the masses of her russet
hair, when there came a knock at the hall door. She looked round and
raised her eyebrows, then, after closing the door to the anteroom of the
studio, she called "Come in!"
Madam Spoll, in a black silk gown covered with a raglan, entered. She
wore a man's small, low-crowned, Derby hat trimmed with a yellow bird's
wing.
"How d'you do?" said Fancy, not too cordially.
"Good evening," Madam Spoll panted; then, as her breath was spent with
climbing the stairs, she dropped into a chair and gasped heavily. Fancy
went on with her preparations without further attention to her visitor.
"Frank in?" was Madam Spoll's query as soon as she could breathe.
"Meaning Mr. Granthope?" said Fancy airily.
"You know who I mean well enough!" was her pettish reply.
"Oh, _do_ I?"--and Fancy, her costume now in readiness for the street,
walked jauntily into the anteroom and knocked at the door. "Madam Spoll
is here to see you," she called out.
"Just a moment," he answered.
Fancy, pulling her jacket behind, wriggling, and smoothing down her
skirt over her hips, walked to the window and cast a glance out. Then
she slammed the drawers of her desk, put a hair-pin between the leaves
of her novel, straightened her pen-holders on the stand, stoppered a
red-ink bottle, and marched out without looking to the left or to the
right.
Madam Spoll glared at her in silence till she had gone; and then, with
an agility extraordinary in so stout a woman, she sprang to the closet,
opened the door and picked up an envelope lying on the floor. It had
been opened. She took the letter out, gave it a hurried glance and then
returned to her seat, stuffing the paper up under her basque.
The letter was short enough for her practised eye to master the contents
almost at a glance. It ran:
My dear Mr. Granthope:--I hope you didn't take offense at my frankness
the other day--if I was too candid don't misinterpret it and my interest
in you. Sometime I may explain it more intelligently, but for the
present believe me to be, Your friend, CLYTIE PAYSON.
Granthope came out after she had concealed the note. He was fully
dressed and almost unrecognizable in his costume. He walked gracefully,
with the light-footed stride of a mandarin, and saluted her with mock
gravity. Madam Spoll stared at him with her mouth open. For a moment
she did not appear to know him. Then she chuckled.
"For the land's sakes, what are you up to now, Frank? Doing the Chinese
doctor's stunt and selling powdered sea-horses?"
He laughed at her surprise. "No, I'm doing society," he explained.
"Do 'em good, then! Lord, you are a-butting in this time, ain't you! I
wouldn't know you from a Sam Yup highbinder on a Chiny New Year in that
rig! What is it, a fancy-dress ball at the Mechanics' Pavilion?"
"Worse than that," he laughed; "this is a private supper-party in
costume and I am a guest."
"Lord, you are getting on, for fair! You ain't been conning them swell
girls for nothing, have you? And, to be frank with you, I always thought
you was after something very different. I was kind of afraid they'd
spoil you, too. It's a good graft, Frank, and if I can do anything to
give you a lift, just say the word."
"Thanks," he said dryly, taking a seat in front of her and pulling his
long sleeves up to his wrist.
She kept her eyes upon him, as if fascinated by the gorgeousness of his
costume, seemingly a little in fear of his elegant manners as well.
Then she broke out, pettishly:
"Say, Fancy's getting pretty fresh, seems to me. She's a very different
girl from what she was when she used to play spook for us. She was glad
enough once to be polite--butter wouldn't melt in her mouth them days!"
"Oh, you mustn't mind Fancy; she's all right when you get used to her."
"She's pretty, if she is sassy," the medium acknowledged. "I can hardly
blame you, Frank. I s'pose you find a good use for her. She seems to
be pretty fond of you."
Granthope scowled. "Never mind about her. She's a great help to me
here, and I like her--that's enough for you. You didn't come here to
talk about Fancy Gray."
"I should think your ladies would object, though," the medium pursued.
"It looks kind of funny, don't it? She stays here pretty late, it seems
to me, if any one was to notice it. Some ladies don't like that sort of
thing; they get jealous. Fancy's too pretty by half!"
"That'll be about all about Fancy Gray. Suppose we change the subject."
"Very good then; we'll change it to another girl that's as pretty. How
would Miss Payson do to talk about?"
"What about her?"
"A whole lot about her. How are you getting along with her, for the
first thing?"
Granthope smiled with an air of satisfaction, but contented himself with
remarking, "Oh, I'm getting on all right. I can attend to my own end of
the game, thank you. I've handled women before."
"More ways than one, eh?"
"She's not that kind. Don't you believe it!"
"Then what, for the Lord's sake, are you doing with her!" Madam Spoll
gave her words a playful accent that he resented. Then she added, more
seriously: "Frank, d'you know, I believe you could marry that girl. If
you have changed yourself enough to like that kind, you might go farther
and fare worse. She'd give you a good stand-in with the Western
Addition, too. And we might help you out a bit; who knows! I can see
all sorts of things in it, just as it stands."
"I haven't begun to think of anything like that," he replied carelessly.
"Of course not. I know well enough what you was thinking of. But you
take my advice and don't spoil a big thing for a little one. Work her
easy and you can land her. That's better a good sight than playing with
her in your usual way."
He rose and walked to the window and looked out, vaguely annoyed. He
turned, in a moment, to ask, "Has the old man made a will?"
"D'you mean to say you ain't found that out yet? Lord, Frank, you _are_
getting slow. I don't know. I ain't come to that yet. But if he
ain't, I'll see that he does make one, and that's where I can look out
for your interests."
There was a slight sneer on his face. "Oh, don't trouble yourself.
I've my own system, you know. I haven't made many breaks yet. It's
likely that I can help you more than you can me. That reminds me; you
might take these notes. It's about all I have got from the girl so far.
They may come in handy."
He went to his desk, took a couple of cards from a tin box in the top
drawer, and handed them to Madam Spoll. She looked them over
interestedly.
"Much obliged. H'm! So she thinks she's a psychic, does she? They
might be something in that. Supposed to be engaged to B. Cayley. Well,
you'll have to fix _him_, won't you! Father writing a book--ah! That's
just what we want. Say, that's great! Me and Vixley will work that
book, don't you worry! Wears a ring with 'Clytie' inside. Turquoises.
Mole on left cheek. Goes to Mercantile Library three to five. Sun-dial
with doll buried under it. That's funny. I wish it was papers, or
something important--I don't see what we could do with a doll, do you?
Still, you never can tell. All's generally fish that comes to my net.
I've known stranger things than dolls. Making a birthday present of a
hand-bound volume of what? Montaigne? What's that? Say, what's this
about Madam Grant, anyway?"
He turned to her and held out his hand for the card, now distinctly
impatient. "I don't know--that is, I forgot I put that on. There's
nothing there that will help you, I guess. You'd better let me have it
back, after all. It's chiefly about Miss Payson, anyway, and that isn't
your business."
Madam Spoll refused to return the card. Instead, she tucked it into the
front of her dress, saying, "Oh, I don't know. You never know what may
be useful. It's well to be prepared."
"See here; you understand that you're to keep your hands off Miss
Payson," said Granthope with emphasis. "She's my game. Do what you like
with the old man, but leave me alone, that's all!"
"Don't you fret yourself about that. Ain't we worked together before,
for gracious sakes? I guess I can mind my own business!"
The palmist walked over to the fireplace, stood leaning against the
mantel and kicked the fender meditatively, somewhat disturbed by Madam
Spoll's presence. He had seen Miss Payson only twice, yet he had already
come to the point where he was annoyed to hear her so cold-bloodedly
discussed, and his own heartless notes quoted. Even less could he enjoy
thinking of so fine and delicate a creature in the toils of Vixley and
Spoll. No, she was for his own plucking. She was a quarry well worth
his chase. To share his plans with such vulgar plotters seemed to
cheapen the prize, to rub off the bloom of her beauty and charm. He
would play a more exquisite, a more subtle game. It would not do,
however, to break with the mediums. They were still useful to him, in
spite of his assertion of independence. They knew, besides, altogether
too much about him for him to dare to kindle their resentment.
If Madam Spoll had noticed his detachment she did not show it. She
herself had, evidently, been thinking something over, and now she
interrupted his meditation.
"Say, Frank, about that old Madam Grant, now--"
"She wasn't so old, was she?"
"How d'you know she wasn't?"
He covered his mistake as well as he could with: "Oh, I've heard she was
a young woman, not more than thirty, when she died."
"Well, it's so far back, it seems as though she must have been old. You
know I fished a little with what you give me about her and Payson;
putting that together with what Lulu Ellis got, I believe I can work
him. Funny you happened on that bit. Did the Payson girl tell you?"
"Oh, I got it--she let it out in a way. You know."
Madam Spoll chuckled. "Lord, they tell us more'n we ever tell _them_,
don't they! But I was saying: I wish I could find out more about that
little boy Madam Grant used to keep. I wonder was he her son, now?"
"I suppose you might find out something if you looked up the files of
the _Chronicle_."
"That's a good idea. I'll do it. D'you know what year it was?"
"1877."
"How d'you know?"
He walked away from her carelessly, replying: "That's the idea I got of
it. About that time."
"Frank," she said, "ain't you ever got any clue to who you are, yet?
Never got any hint at all?"
"Never."
"Why don't you go to some real sure-enough psychic? They might help.
I've known 'em to do wonderful things."
Granthope gazed at her and laughed loud. "_You?_" was all he could say.
She drew herself up. "Yes, _me_! Sure. Why, you don't think I
consider they ain't no genuine ones, even if I do fake a little, do
you?"
"You actually believe there's a medium alive that can tell such things?"
"I'm positive of it. Why, when I begun, I give some remarkable tests
myself. I used to get names, sometimes. But there _are_ straight ones.
Not here, maybe, but in New York. You could send a lock of your hair."
He went up to her and clapped his hand on her shoulder, still laughing.
"You're beautiful, my dear; you're positively beautiful!"