He followed her, thoroughly dissatisfied with himself at having let his
moment pass. He understood her well enough. It was only by stopping
still, as she had said, that he could lose her. She had started a
change in him, and it must go on. Something which tied his hands, his
mind, must be cut; he must be free of that before he could speak.
They retraced their steps, she talking, as when they had come,
inconsequently; he, moody, troubled inwardly, self-conscious. She was
to give him one more hope, however. As she left him, on the avenue, she
offered her hand, and smiled.
"Don't give it up," she said, and turned away, leaving him standing
alone, still fighting his battle with himself.
He had enough to think of, as he strode home, ill-satisfied with himself
and in a turmoil of thought in regard to her. There was no question of
mastery, now; she had beaten him at his own game. It was only a
question of surrender.
He went up into his office and stood, looking about. The row of plaster
casts confronted him. He took one from the row and examined it. There,
too, was a heart line split up with divergent branches, punctuated with
little islands, beginning at the Mount of Saturn, herring-boned to the
end, at the double crease which signified two marriages. The fingers
were short and fat, the thumb being far too small. Small joints, broad
lines, deep cushions at the Mounts of Venus and Mercury, deep bracelets
at the wrist--Granthope's eyes read the signs as if the hand were a
face, or a whole body.
As he turned the cast over thoughtfully, to look at the back, it dropped
from his grasp and fell to the floor, breaking into a dozen pieces.
Bits of wire projected humorously from the stump. He smiled.
"Kismet!" he said to himself. "Adieu, Violet!"
He was stooping to clear away the fragments when he heard a knock upon
the door. Going to answer it, he found Professor Vixley waiting.
"Hello, Frank," said the slate-writer. "Can I see you for a few
minutes?"
"Come in." Granthope drew up a chair, but stood himself with his hands
in his pockets while his visitor made himself comfortable.
Vixley's shrewd eyes roved about the room and rested upon the broken
cast. "Hello," he said, "cat got into the statuary?"
"Accident," said the palmist.
"Plenty more where they come from, I s'pose. Say, Frank, let's see the
Payson girl's hand, will you?"
"I haven't it."
"You mean a cast, of course, eh? I expect you've pretty near got the
original, ain't you?"
"Not yet." Granthope frowned.
"But soon--"
Granthope shrugged his shoulders.
"It was about Payson I wanted to see you," the Professor went on.
"Seems to me you ain't standin' in like you agreed to. Gert claims you
got cold feet on the proposition. I thought I'd drop in and chew it
over."
Granthope did not answer, and the frown on his forehead persisted.
Vixley took out a cigar and lighted it, threw his match on to the desk,
looked about again, and grinned. "Then you _have_ got cold feet, eh?"
he remarked, crossing his legs.
Granthope looked the Professor squarely in the eye for a moment. Then
he said deliberately: "Vixley, what will you take to leave town?"
Vixley showed his astonishment in the stare with which he replied. His
lip drew away from his yellow fangs, and a keen light came into his
black eyes. "Oho! That's the game, is it? Somethin' doin', after all,
eh? Well, well!" He mouthed his cigar meditatively and twirled his
thumbs in his lap.
"Come, name your price," said Granthope sharply.
"I'd like a few details first."
"What's the figure?"
Vixley was in no hurry, and enjoyed his advantage. "I thought you was up
to something, Frank. Gert's pretty sharp, but Lord, she's only a woman.
You fooled _her_ a bunch. She really thought you'd got a change of
heart. So you want to cut up the money all by your lonely, eh? Well,
now, what'll you give to have me pull out of it?"
"I'll give you five hundred dollars," said Granthope.
"Nothin' doin'," said Vixley decidedly. "Why, it's worth more than that
to me just as it stands, and I ain't but just begun. If you can't do
better than that, why, it's no use talkin'."
"I asked you what you wanted. Let's have it, and I'll talk business."
"Payson's pretty well fixed," said Vixley. "I s'pose if you marry the
girl you'll get a good wad of his money."
"Never mind the girl. I want to buy you out."
"Well, I'd have to think it over. You know we got a great scheme, and
if it works it'll mean a steady income. But I don't mind turnin' over
money quick. You make it a thousand dollars and I'll agree to leave you
alone, and pull off Gert into the bargain. You'll have to fix Masterson
yourself. I don't trust him."
Granthope began to walk the room again, thinking. He returned finally,
to say: "It won't do merely for you to agree to keep out of it. I know
you too well. This is a business agreement. If I give you a thousand,
will you leave town? That's my offer."
Vixley reflected. "That ain't so much. I dunno as I could afford to
spoil my whole business for that."
"Pshaw. You don't make that in a year!"
"Not last year, perhaps, but I expect to this."
"Then you refuse?"
"Wait a minute. Have you got the money on hand?"
"No, I haven't." Granthope's face clouded. "But I have an idea I might
raise it. I could pay you in instalments. But you'd have to be outside
of California to get it. That's understood."
Vixley rose. "Well, when you've got the money you can begin to talk.
If you can raise it, as you say, I may agree. After all, I could use a
thou' just at present, and I s'pose I could operate in Chicago till you
let me come back. Say I accept."
"All right. As soon as I can raise five hundred, I'll see you, and buy
your ticket. Until then, I expect you to leave Payson alone."
"Will _you_ leave him alone? That's the question! I don't propose to
have no interference until you make good with the money."
"I'll make good, all right," said Granthope.
"Very well, then." Vixley rose and buttoned what buttons were left on
his coat. "When you're ready to do business, I'm ready. But you see
here!" He shook a long, bony finger at the palmist. "If you go to work
and try any gum-games with the old man before then, Frank, I'll break
you--like that there hand." He pointed down to the cast on the floor.
Then he added easily: "Not that it would do you any good if you did,
though. I'll attend to _that_. I got to protect myself. It'll be easy
enough to fix it so the old man won't take much stock in what you tell
him."
"I expect that's so," Granthope shrugged his shoulders. "I don't mind
saying that if I thought I could do anything that way, I would."
"So long, then. The sooner you make your bid, the cheaper it'll be."
He turned from the door and looked the palmist over. "You're a good
one, Frank. I don't deny you got brains. I wouldn't mind knowin' just
what you was up to. It must be something elegant." He came up to
Granthope and gestured with both hands. "Say--why don't you let me in?
We could work it together, and I'll lose Gertie. I ain't no fool,
myself, when it comes right down to business."
Granthope laughed sarcastically. "I hardly think you can help much in
this. It's a rather delicate proposition, and I'll have to go it alone.
Just as soon as I get the cash I'll let you know."
For an hour after that Granthope sat in his office thinking it over.
His offer to Vixley had come on the spur of the moment, and, although he
did not regret it, he was at a loss to know how he could make it good.
He went over his accounts carefully, inspected his bank-book, made a
valuation of his property. He could see no way, at present, to raise
sufficient money to buy Vixley off, and yet to sit still and let him go
on with Clytie's father was intolerable. He had seen men ruined by such
wiles, and his own conscience was not clean in this matter. There
seemed no way of escape.
Late that afternoon he decided to call on Fancy Gray. He had hardly
seen her since the night she left, and he was troubled in her regard,
also. He. dreaded to know just what she was doing, and how she stood
it. He had long attempted to deny to himself that she cared too much
for him, and always their fiction had been maintained--that fiction
which, during their pretty idyl at Alma, so long ago, had crystallized
itself into their whimsical motto: "No fair falling in love!" He had
kept their pact well enough. He dared not answer for her.
Fancy lived in a three-story house on O'Farrell, Street, near Jones
Street, a place back from the sidewalk, with a garden in front and on
one side. Fancy had a room on the attic floor, with two dormer windows
giving upon the front yard. As Granthope turned in the gate and looked
up at her windows, he was surprised to see one of them raised. Fancy's
arm appeared, a straw hat in her hand. The next instant the hat sailed
gracefully out into the air, curving like an aeroplane. It dropped
nearly at his feet. He picked it up, thinking that she would look out
after it, but instead, the sash was lowered.
A minute afterward a young man, bareheaded, and apparently violently
enraged, appeared at the front door. Granthope walked up and presented
the hat to Mr. Gay P. Summer, who took it, staring, without a word of
thanks, and stalked sulkily away.
The door being left open, Granthope walked up three flights of stairs
and knocked at Fancy's room. There was no reply. He called to her. The
door was instantly flung open.
"Why, hello, Frank! Excuse me. I thought it was my meal-ticket coming
back to bore me to death again." Fancy began to laugh. "You ought to
have seen him. He simply wouldn't go, after I'd given him twenty-three
gilt-edged tips, and so I had to throw his hat out of the window to get
rid of him."
"I saw him. I think he won't come back. He looked rather
uncomfortable."
Fancy sat down on the bed unconcernedly, clasping her hands on her
crossed knees, while Granthope took a seat upon a trunk.
"Say, Frank, these people who expect to annex all your time and pay for
it in fifty cent _table d'hotes_ are beginning to make me tired.
There's nothing so expensive as free dinners, I've found! The minute
you let a man buy you a couple of eggs, he thinks he's in a position to
dictate to you for the rest of eternity. Why, one dinner means he's
hired you till eleven o'clock, and I run out of excuses long before
that. No, you don't get anything free in this world, and many a girl's
found _that_ out!"
Granthope smiled. Fancy was at her prettiest, with a whimsical
animation that he knew of old. Nothing delighted him so much as Fancy
in her semi-philosophic vein.
She ran on: "Gay has just proposed to me again--I've lost tally, now.
The one good thing about him is that he's always ready to make good with
the ring whenever I say the word. He takes me seriously just because I
never explain. But all the encouragement I've ever given him is to
accept. Gay's the kind that always calls you 'Little girl,' no matter
how high you are, and tells you you're 'brave'! There's no one quite
like you, Frank--"
As she spoke, her gaiety slowly oozed away, till she sat almost
plaintively watching him. Then she smiled and shook her head slowly.
"Don't get frightened, I won't do anything foolish." She sprang up and
tossed her head. Then, turning to him, she said: "Say, Frank, do you
know Blanchard Cayley?"
"Why, I've just heard of him, that's all. He's a friend of Miss
Payson's."
"She isn't--fond of him, is she?" Fancy demanded.
"Oh, I hope not! Why?"
"Nothing. Only, I met him, one night, at Carminetti's. Gay had just
thrown me down hard. He came round, afterward, and apologized." Fancy
looked across the room abstractedly as she talked. Upon the wall were
strung a collection of empty chianti bottles in their basket-work
shells, a caricature by Maxim, a circus poster and other evidence of her
recent conversion to the artistic life. She spoke with a queer
introspective manner. "I had a queer feeling about Mr. Cayley. You
know, for all I'm such a scatterbrain, I do like a man with a mind. I
like to look up to a man. He's awfully well-read. Of course, he isn't
as clever as you, but he sort of fascinates me--I don't know why. He
interests me, although I can't understand half he says. I suppose he
makes me forget. There's nothing like knowing how to forget. But
you're sure Miss Payson isn't too fond of him?"
"I'd like to be surer," said Granthope. He, too, was looking fixedly
across the room--at the mottoes and texts upon the wall, on the mantel,
and over her bed--"Do it Now!" "Nothing Succeeds like Success"--and such
platitudes as, printed in red and black, are sold at bookshops for the
moral education of those unable to think for themselves.
Fancy slid gently off the bed, and dropped to the floor in front of him.
Her hand stole fondly for his, and clasped it, petting it.
"How is she, Frank?"
He put his hand on her hair and smoothed it affectionately. "Fine,
Fancy, fine."
"Oh--I hope it's all right, Frank."
"I don't know, Fancy. You'd hardly recognize me, these days. I'm
losing my sense of humor. I'm becoming a prig, I think."
Fancy laughed. "Well, there's plenty of room in that direction. But I
don't think she'd mind your being a devil occasionally. Women don't
have to be saints to be thoroughbreds. And there's many a saint that
would like to take a day off, once in a while!"
"Have you seen Vixley, lately?"