Part 12

"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!"

She turned a surprised face to him. "What in the world d'you mean?"

He shook his head and walked away. "Preserve your illusions! It's too wonderful. I'll be believing in palmistry, next I'll believe myself in love, after that. And then--I'll believe I'm honest, dignified, honorable, modest!" His tone grew, word by word, more hard and cynical. Then he turned to her with a whimsical expression: "So you believe your doll's alive!"

"I've no time to talk nonsense any longer!" she exclaimed, rising ponderously. "I can't make you out at all, Frank. Sometimes you're practical as insurance and sometimes you're half bug-house. Maybe it's them clothes!" She regarded him carefully.

He bowed to her with mock courtesy, spreading his fan.

"Lord, you _do_ look like a fool in that Chink's rig. Have a good time with 'em--but keep your eyes and your ears open!"

She went out.

He was about to turn out the electric lights and leave, when he heard a knock at the door. He opened it, and saw the little freckled-face girl who had come to his office the day he had first met Clytie Payson. He recognized her instantly, but she, seeing him so extraordinarily disguised, drew back in surprise.

"Did you want Mr. Granthope?" he asked.

"Yes!" She finally made him out, but still gazed at him, somewhat frightened. Her face was bloodless.

"Come in," he said kindly. "I'm Granthope. You'll have to excuse this costume." He set a chair for her, but she stood, timidly regarding him.

"I'm awfully afraid I'm bothering you, Mr. Granthope, coming so late--I know I ought to have come in your office hours, but I couldn't possibly get off--and I did want to see you awfully! D'you suppose you could help me a little, now? I thought you might be able to, you said such wonderful things when I was here before, and I just can't stand it not to know, and I don't know what to do."

"Do sit down. Tell me what's the matter, my dear."

She crept into a chair, and sat with nervous hands, staring at him.

"Why, don't you remember?" She gazed at him in alarm. "Oh, I've depended so on what you said--it's all that kept me going!"

"Just pardon me a moment, please." He went to his desk drawer and began to fumble over his card catalogue. "I have a memorandum to make. Then I'll talk to you." He came to the card, and made a penciled note and glanced it over. Then he returned to her and sat down. "Now tell me all about it," he said gravely. "I remember perfectly, of course. Bill was in the Philippines, wasn't he? You hadn't heard from him for some time, and you were expecting him home on the next transport?"

She sat, limply huddled in her chair, gazing at him through her sad eyes.

"He did come back. I couldn't meet the boat. I missed him. And now he's gone!"

"He didn't let you know where he went?"

"Oh, Mr. Granthope, it's too awful! I can't bear it, but I could stand anything if I could only find him! You _must_ find him for me."

"I'll do what I can, my dear. Your hand shows that it will all come out for the best. I wouldn't worry."

"Oh, but you don't know! You don't know how bad it is!" she moaned. "I thought you might know. He was wounded in a battle."

"But he came back?"

"Yes." Then she burst into a hurried torrent of words. "He didn't want me to know. He was shot in the face--his nose was shot off--it's awful--some of the men told me about it. Bill was ashamed to have me see him--he tried to make me think he wasn't in love with me any more, so I'd go away. But I knew better. Bill's so proud, Mr. Granthope, you don't know how proud he is! He'd rather leave me than make me suffer. But what do I care for his nose being gone? Why, Bill's a hero! He had more nerve than Hobson, anyway! Just because he was the only man in his company that dared to go through a swamp, under fire, to save his lieutenant--and he brought him in on his back, Bill did! Why, Bill's father was killed at Antietam, but Bill's luck was a heap worse than that! He has to live without a face and be despised and sneered at because he did his duty! Oh, if I can only find him, I'll give him something that will make him forget. Don't I love him all the more for it? He's tried to sacrifice his whole life and happiness only for me--just to save me from suffering when I look at him. D'you know many men who'd do that for a girl? I don't!"

She broke down and sobbed convulsively. The story seemed to Granthope like a scene from a play, and his inability to comfort her smote him while she fought to restrain her tears.

"And you can't find out where he is?"

"No. The company was mustered out, and Bill just naturally disappeared. Nobody knows where he is. I've asked all his officers, and all the men I could find."

He took her hand and looked at it soberly for a moment.

"It will all come out right, my dear. You trust me. There's your line of fate as clean as a string. I see trouble in it, but only for a little while. You'll be married, too. You must have patience and wait, that's all. Suppose you come back and see me in a week or so, and tell me if you've heard any news of him. Meanwhile, I'll see what I can find out myself. There's a cross in your hand--that's a good sign. Bill still loves you, and he won't let you suffer long."

He felt the pitiful emptiness of his words, but he had been too affected by her narrative to give her the smooth banalities that were always ready to his tongue. She got up and looked at him through her tears.

"You have helped me, Mr. Granthope. Somehow I knew you could. I'll be in again sometime. How much is it, please?"

"My dear girl, when you come again, you can thank the young lady whom you saw here before. Don't thank me."

She looked at him silently, then she took his hand and shook it very hard. "You mean that lady with red hair who sits at the desk?"

"Yes."

"I liked her when I saw her. She was nice to me. Is--is she Mrs. Granthope?"

Granthope shook his head and smiled.

The girl blushed at her indiscretion. "I kind of thought--she seemed to be, well, fond of you. I mean, the way she looked at you, I didn't know but what you were married. I hope you'll excuse me." She was visibly confused, and evidently had said much more than she had intended.

"My dear," Granthope replied, "she's far too good for me!"

The girl shook her head slowly, as she rose to go. A smile struggled to her face as if, for the first time, she noted the incongruity of the palmist's costume, then, with a grateful look she went out.

As soon as he had left, Granthope sat down at the desk and wrote a note upon a memorandum pad. It read:

Fancy--

To-morrow morning please go down to the ticket office at the Ferry, and see if you can find out where a soldier, with his nose shot off, bought a ticket to, about ten days ago.

He rose, yawned, stared thoughtfully at the cast; for a few moments, then snapped his fingers and walked to the window. His cab was waiting. He went down-stairs, got into the vehicle and drove off.

The Maxwells lived at Presidio Heights, in one of the newer residences of the aristocratic Western Addition, a handsome brick house decorated with Romanesque fantasies in terra cotta, behind a bronze rail guarded by heraldic griffins. Granthope walked up under the lantern-hung awning five minutes before the hour and was shown to a room up-stairs.

Here there were several men waiting and adjusting their garments. All but one were in Chinese costume; this was a fat, red-faced man, with a white mustache. He was in evening dress, and kept exclaiming:

"I won't make a damned fool of myself for anybody. It's all nonsense!" He was obviously embarrassed at being the only nonconformist.

"Sully" Maxwell, arrayed in a magnificently embroidered Chinese officer's summer uniform--a long, flounced robe, with the imperial dragons and their balls of fire, the rainbow border and the all-over cloud-pattern--was helping the men to dress, chaffing each of them in turn. He was middle-aged and prosperous-looking, typically a "man's man" and "hail-fellow-well-met," despite his immense fortune. He greeted Granthope cordially, without hint of patronage, and introduced him to the others.

Of two, Keith and Fernigan, Granthope had heard much. They were the pets of a certain smartish social circle, in virtue of their cleverness and wit. They were of the kind who habitually do "stunts" and were always expected to make the company merry and informal. Keith was a tall, wiry, flap-eared, smiling fellow, made up as a Chinese stage-comedian, with his nose painted white. Fernigan, short, stout to rotundity, almost bald, with spectacles, and a round, Irish face, was dressed in woman's costume, head-dress, earrings, green coat and pink silk trousers. He was naturally droll, a wag at all times, and his whimsical way constantly approached a shocking limit but never quite reached it. He was speaking a good parody of the Cantonese dialect to his partner, and making eccentric gestures.

Both he and Keith greeted Granthope with mock gravity, addressing him in pidgin English. Granthope answered with what spirit he had, and, taking his place at the mirror, placed upon his nose an enormous pair of blue-glass spectacles, horn-rimmed. They disguised him effectually.

As he left the room, a man with a pointed, reddish beard entered, dressed in long flowing robes of plum-colored silk.

Granthope caught the greeting: "Hello, Blan!" and turned with curiosity to see the Mr. Cayley of whom he had heard so much. He did not, however, wait to be introduced, but passed on.

The great reception-room down-stairs presented one of the most beautiful, as well as one of the most original, of San Francisco interiors. It was entirely of redwood, panels six feet in width all round the walls extending up to a narrow shelf supported by carved brackets. The low-studded ceiling was broken by a row of finely adzed beams, carved tastefully at the ends. A feature of the reception-room was a wide fireplace of terra cotta surmounted by a mantel, consisting of at least a dozen combined moldings, each member of which showed a striking individuality of detail. The place was illuminated by side brackets in the form of copper sconces. Granthope entered, quite at his ease, with a long, swinging, heel-and-toe stride that comported well with his costume.

There were already some half-dozen persons sitting about the room, most of whom seemed afraid to talk for fear of disclosing their identity, or perhaps, a little too self-conscious in their garish raiment. The silence, if it had not been painful, would have been absurd. Granthope looked in vain for any sign of his hostess' presence, and then suspecting that she, too, was masked to enjoy the piquancy of the situation, he saluted one of the ladies, sat down beside her and began a conversation. Knowing that few were acquainted with him he had no need to disguise his voice. He sat on a straight chair stiffly, as he had seen Chinese actors pose at the theater, his toes turned out in opposite directions so as to insure the proper fall of the skirt of his robe, and disclose, through a narrow gap, the splendor of his lavender trousers. His partner answered him in whispers.

As he sat talking nonsense gaily, a woman came into the room with so perfect an imitation of the "tottering lily" walk affected by high-caste Chinese women, that he turned his eyes upon her in delight at her acting.

She was of a good height; and her white embroidered shoes, whose heels were placed in the center of the sole, gave her nearly two inches more. Her costume was a rainbow of subdued contrasting colors. It was evident at a glance that every garment she wore was old, valuable and consistent with her character of bride.

The smoothly coiled rolls of her black wig were decorated by numerous gold ornaments and artificial flowers. Across her forehead was a head-dress of gold filigree-work and kingfisher feathers; its ribbon was tied in the back of her head and fell in fanciful ends. She wore two coats--the outer was of yellow brocaded silk, a pastel shade, trimmed with a wide stripe of close blue embroidery and rows of looking-glass buttons--the inner one, shorter, was of blue and black appliqued work in bold, virile pattern. Below this showed her closely-pleated skirt of old rose with a panel of gold embroidery in the center; this, as she walked, revealed occasional glimpses of a pair of full straight green trousers trimmed with horizontal stripes, and a flash of white silk stockings. Necklaces she had in profusion, one of jade, one of purple mother-of-pearl, one of white coral, one of sandalwood; and others in graded sizes and colors. In her right hand she carried a narrow gold-paper fan; on her left wrist was a jade bracelet, and, pulled through it, a green silk handkerchief with a purple fringe.

Her entry made a sensation, as she courtesied gravely to each one in turn. So, playing her part cleverly, she came to Granthope, who arose and greeted her with a dignified salaam. So far they were the only ones who had at all entered into the spirit of the occasion, and he did his best to meet her character and play up to her elaborate salutation. He offered his arm, then, and escorted her, with considerable manner, to a long settee.

In all this pantomime she had preserved a serious expression, the repressed, almost inanely impassive, set face of a Chinese lady of rank; but when at last she was seated, she turned full upon him and smiled under her mask.

The effect upon Granthope was a sudden thrill of overpowering delight. He was deliciously weakened by the revelation. His breath came suddenly, with a swift intake--the blood rioted through his veins.

She wore a much wider mask than the others, so that nothing but her mouth and chin was shown. But that mouth was so tempting, with its ravishing, floating smile, and that smile so concentrated in its limitation to a single feature, that it turned his head. The lips were narrow and bright; the blood seemed about to ooze through the skin. The upper one was curved in a tantalizing bow between the drops of soft shadow at the corners. The cleft above seemed to draw her lip a little upward to disclose a line of small, perfect, regular teeth of a delicate, bluish white translucence, which, parting, showed a narrow rosy tongue. The lower lip was that delicious fraction of an inch lesser than the upper one which, in profile, gave her a touch of youthful, almost boyish, wistfulness. Her round, firm chin showed, from the same point of view, a classic right angle to her throat, where the line swept down the proud column of her neck, there to swing tenderly outward toward her breast.

He could not take his eyes from her, but he had not the will to restrain his staring. The spell was irresistible; he drank her deep and could not get enough. For these whirling moments he was at the mercy of the attraction of sex, impersonal, yet distilled to an intoxicating essence. Had it not been for her mask hiding the upper part of her face, had her eyes corrected this almost wanton loveliness with some reserve or with the effect of a more intellectual character, had his glance even been given a chance to wander over equally enchanting components of that expression, he undoubtedly would not have been so moved by the sight of her laughing, tempting mouth. But that, faultlessly formed, exquisitely sexed, whimsically provocative, had for him, with the rest of her face hidden, an original and freshly flavored delight. In the spectrum of her beauty the violets and blues of her spirit, the greens and orange of her mind were for the nonce inhibited; only the vibrant red rays of her physical personality smote him, burning him with their radiance. But there was, he felt, no malice behind that smile, though it was mischievous; there was nothing wanton there, though in this guise her lips seemed abandoned and inviting. There was, in their flexed contour, in the engaging mobility of their poise, no consciousness of anything sensually appealing. It was, rather, as if he gained some secret aspect of the woman beneath and behind all conventions of morality, of modesty, and of discretion. So far, indeed, she seemed, in a way, without a personality. She was Woman smiling at him. The vision was too much for him.

She bent toward him and her lips whispered:

"How do you do, Mr. Granthope? Why are you staring so? I thought of course you knew me--but I really believe you don't."

Even then he did not recognize her, and was profoundly embarrassed. That he should fail to remember such a mouth as that! He took her hand which had been concealed in her long sleeve and looked at it. She had glued long false nails of celluloid to her little fingers, completing the picture of a Chinese lady of quality. At the first sight of her palm, at the first touch of it, even, he knew her, and, with a rush, a dozen thoughts bewildered him. This was she whom he had been able so to influence, to cajole. He had, in a way, a claim to this comeliness. She had favored him, had confessed her interest in him. They were, besides, bound by a secret tie. He might hope for more of her, perhaps. She was already somewhat in his power; he had, at least, the capacity to sway her. She, alluring, delightful, might perhaps be gained, and in some way, won. She had known him at a glance--there was her prescience again! She had welcomed him, in assurance of her favor. What then was possible? What dared he not hope for? A great wave of desire overcame him.

Meanwhile he answered, distracted and unready:

"You knew me then? I thought I was pretty well disguised."