Part 24

"Just before she died she asked me to take some money she had and to keep it safe. I hid it and ran away because I was afraid that they'd find it and take it away from me. I went to Stockton and carried the package to a bank, but they frightened me with their questions and I ran away without any explanations. Of course it's lost, and it was, as I remember it, a big sum, some thousands. I could never prove that I left it there, for my name wasn't on the package of bills. I had written some false name--I forget what. I never let any one know that I had lived with Madam Grant, after that, for fear that I should be accused of having stolen the money. My story would never have been believed, of course."

"I see." Clytie's eyes half closed in thought. "I'm sure it was meant for you, Francis."

The sound of his name stirred him and his hand tightened on hers.

"Perhaps so. But I've always thought that she intended it for some of her kin. It has been impossible for me to trace any of her family, though. All I know about her is that she was at Vassar College, but I can't possibly identify her, because Grant was undoubtedly a name she assumed here."

"We must try to see what we can do, you and I. Perhaps I may be able to help you, somehow. What happened after that?"

"I worked at odd jobs in the country for a number of years, then came back to San Francisco. There I did anything I could get to do till I met Madam Spoll. She was a medium, and is yet. I lived with her several years."

As he had torn down the draperies of that dark, mysterious room, he went on, now, to tear down the curtain of shams and hypocrisies that had hidden his true self from her and from her kind.

"That was the beginning of a long education in trickery. I was surrounded by charlatans and impostors, I was taught that the public was gullible and that it liked to be fooled--that it would be fooled, whether we did it or not; and that we might benefit by its credulity as well as any one else. There was sophistry enough, God knows, in their miserable philosophy, but I was young and was for a while taken in by it. I had no other teachers; I had only the example of the colony of fakirs about me. I saw our victims comforted and encouraged by the mental bread-pills we fed them. So we played on their weakness and vanity without scruple. I learned rapidly. I was cleverer than my teachers; I went far ahead of them. I invented new tricks and methods. But it was too easy. There was scarcely any need of subtlety or finesse. The most primitive methods sufficed. You have no idea how easily seemingly intelligent persons can be led once they are past the first turning. That was finally why I got out of it and went into palmistry. That had, at least, a basis of science, and a dignified history."

He arose again and walked to the open window. His self-consciousness was a little relieved by his interest in the analysis. He looked out, and turned back to her with a grim smile.

"It's in the air, here--the gambling instinct is paramount!" he said. "Almost everybody gambles in San Francisco. You know that well enough. You can almost hear the rattle of the slot-machines on the cigar-stand at the corner, down there. It's that way all over town. The gold-fever has never died out. Every one speculates or plays the races or bets on ball games or on the prize-fights, or plays faro or poker or bridge--or, at least, makes love. They're all superstitious, all credulous, all willing to take risks and chances, and so the mediums thrive. Tips are sought for and paid for. Every one wants to get rich quickly and not always scrupulously. It's not a city of healthy growth; it's a town of surprises, of magic and madness and rank enthusiasms. We pretended to show them the short cuts to success, that's all. You know, perhaps, how the money-getting ability can eclipse all other faculties, and you won't be surprised when I tell you that we made large sums from men of wealth and prominence--they were the easiest of the lot, usually."

She brought him back to his story. "Of course I understood from what I heard, that you had been an accomplice of these mediums. I don't think you need to go into that."

"Oh, you don't know all! It will sicken you to have me go into the actual details, but I want you to know the worst. I think I must tell you, lest others may. One picture will be enough to make you see how vulgar and despicable I had become in that epoch. You'd never get to the sordidness of it unless I told you in so many words. Do you think you can stand it? You may not want ever to know me again. God! I don't know whether I _can_ tell you or not! It's terrible to have to sully you with the description of it!"

For a moment she faltered, gazing at him, trembling. Her eyes sought his and left them, often, as she spoke. "You don't mean--I've heard that some of these mediums--the vilest of them--don't hesitate to--take advantage of the sensual weakness of their patrons--that they--Oh, don't tell me that you ever had any part in _that_!" She covered her face.

He walked over to her and pulled her hands away, looking down into her eyes. "Do you think I would ever have kissed you if I had?" he said. "No, there were depths I didn't fall to, after all. Oh, I've had my way with women often enough; but not that way."

She threw off her fears with a gesture of relief, and her mood changed. "I believe you. But don't tell me any more, please. I think I know, in a way, just about what you were capable of, and some things I couldn't bear to think about. But my reason has always fought against my intuition whenever I suspected you of any real dishonor. Thank Heaven I shall never have to do so again! I think I was wise enough to see how, in all this, you had the inclinations without the opportunities for better things. You were a victim of your environment. Spare me any more. I can't bear to see you abase yourself so. I am so sure you have outlived all this. It's all over. I have told you that I love you. I shall always love you!"

He yearned for her--for the peace and support that she could give him at this crisis, but his pride was too hot, yet, for him to accept it; he had not finished his confession. She was still on a pedestal--he admired and respected her, but she was above his reach. He could not quite believe that hint in her eyes, for her halo blinded him. She was still princess, seeress, goddess--not yet a woman he could take fearlessly to his arms. His hesitation at her advances, therefore, was reluctant, almost coy. He did not wish to take her from her niche; he must first receive absolution. After that--he dared not think. She had allured him in the first stages of his acquaintance, she still allured him; but her spiritual attributes dominated him. "I think I am another man, now," he said, "but my repentance is scarcely an hour old. It is too young; it has not yet proved itself. It's not fair for me to accept all you can give for the little I can return. I must meet you as an equal."

She looked at him calmly. "It is more than a few hours old," she said. "Do you think I don't know? What I first saw in you I have watched grow ever since. I told you all I could; it was not for me to help you more. It was for you to help yourself--to develop from within. I think you were all ready for me, and I came at the psychological moment." She looked around the room from which the sunlight had now retreated, leaving it shadowy and dim. The hangings of black velvet were scattered about the floor, the little table and its two chairs were like a group of skeletons, empty, satiric, suggestive of past vanities. "'What is to come is real; it was a dream that passed,'" she quoted.

He found a new courage and a new hope. It shone in his eyes, it tingled in his body; something of his old audacity returned. He stood dark and strong before her.

"Oh, you have helped, indeed!" he said. "I think this would never have come alone, for I was sunk in an apathy--and yet, I'm not sure. The old life was no longer possible. I confess that I was in a trap, threatened with exposure--I feared your discovery of what I had been--I smarted under the shame of your disapproval--but it was not that that influenced me. It was like a chemical reaction, as all human intercourse is; you precipitated all this deceit and hypocrisy at one stroke and left my mind clear."

"I'm so glad you feel it that way," Clytie said. "It brings us together, doesn't it? It lessens the debt you would owe me." Her eyelids crinkled in a delicious expression of humor, as she added, "And it makes this place seem a little less like a Sunday-school room!"

"Oh, I suppose many a man has refused to reform for fear of being considered a prig!" he laughed. "But I haven't swept out all the corners yet. I must finish cleaning house before I invite you in."

"Why should we talk about it any more?"

"But it isn't all over!" he exclaimed. "I haven't told everything. It's all over, so far as I am concerned--I shall not go back--but now you are involved in it. Could anything drag me lower than that?"

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Only that, because of my fault in not warning you before, your father has already become the latest dupe for this gang of fakirs. I'm afraid he's in their power. Hasn't he told you anything about it?"

"A little. What is there to fear from them?"

"Of course, it's only his money they're after. They have got hold of considerable information about him--I don't know just how or what--and they have succeeded in hoodwinking him into a belief that they have supernatural powers. I'm afraid it's no use for me to attempt to expose them. He'd never believe anything I could say."

"No, that's useless. He has taken a violent prejudice against you, for some reason."

"Oh, the reason is easy to find. I've made enemies of Madam Spoll and Vixley, and they have probably done their best to hurt my reputation. They made me a proposition to join them; in fact, their scheme was for me to work you for information--make love to you, in order to help them rob your father."

Clytie looked at him trustfully. "You can never convince me that that was the reason why you were attracted to me, for I shall not believe you!" She patted his hand affectionately, as he sat at her feet.

He shook his head. "I don't know--I wouldn't be sure it wasn't."

"Ah, I know you better!" She grew blithe, and a mischievous smile appeared on her lips. Her eyes twinkled as she said archly: "Perhaps I may say that I know myself better, too. I'm vainer than you seem to think, and you're not at all complimentary. Don't you think--don't you think that--perhaps--I myself had something to do with your attentions to me?" She put her head on one side and looked at him with mock coquetry.

His eyes feasted upon her beauty. "I won't be banal enough to say that you are different from every woman I have ever known, or that you're the only woman I ever loved, though both of those things are true enough. If I had ever loved any other woman, probably I should feel just the same about you as I do now. But no woman has ever stirred me mentally before. You have given me myself--nobody else could ever have done that. I have nothing to give you in return--nothing but twenty-odd mistaken, misspent years."

"And how many more to be wonderfully filled, I wonder? You're only a child, and I must teach you. Can you trust me? Remember that I knew you when you were a little boy."

"I wonder what will become of me? I suppose I shall get on somehow. It doesn't interest me much yet, but I suppose it will have to be considered. I'll fight it out alone." He looked up suddenly. "When do you go East?"

She smiled. "I came down here to tell you that I should leave on Saturday."

He jumped up with a bitter look and walked to the window.

She looked over to him with her eyes half shut and a delectable expression upon her lips. "But I've decided not to go--at all!"

She almost drawled it.

In an instant he was back at her side, borne on a flood of happiness. For a moment he looked at her hard. His eyes went from feature to feature, to her hands, her hair in silent approval. Then he exclaimed decidedly:

"Oh, you can't link yourself with me in any way. I'm a social outcast--why, now, I haven't even the advantage of being a picturesque adventurer! You will compromise yourself fearfully--you'll be ostracized--oh, it's impossible--I can't permit it!"

"You need not fear for yourself--or for me," she said, clasping his hand. "If I love you, what do I care--what should you care? I have come to you like Porphyria--but I am no Porphyria--you'll have no need to strangle me in my hair--my 'darling one wish' will be easier found than that!"

There was something in the unrestrained fondness of her look, now, that made him jump to a place beside her. What might have followed was interrupted by the sound of a familiar voice in the anteroom, demanding Mr. Granthope. Clytie sprang up, her cheeks burning. Granthope turned coolly to the door, with his eyebrows lifted. Mr. Payson appeared at the entrance. He was scowling under his bushy eyebrows, the muscles of his face were twitching. A cane was firmly clenched in his right hand. He bent a harsh look at his daughter.

"What does this mean, Clytie?" he demanded.

She had recovered on the instant and faced him splendidly, in neither defiance nor supplication. "It means," she said in her low, steady voice, "that as you won't permit me to receive Mr. Granthope in your house, I must see him in his."

"Leave this room instantly!" he thundered bombastically.

"Please don't make a scene, father. I'm quite old enough to take care of myself, and to judge for myself. You needn't humiliate me."

"Humiliate you! If you're not humiliated at being found here with a cheap impostor, I don't think I can shame you! This man is a rank scoundrel and a cheat--I won't have you compromise yourself with such a mountebank!"

Granthope stood watching her unruffled, fearless pose, confident in her power to control the situation.

"Mr. Granthope is my friend, father. Don't say anything that you may regret. I don't intend to leave you alone with him till you are master of yourself, and can say what you have come to say without anger. He has respected your request not to call on me at the house, and I came here of my own accord, without his invitation. And he has always treated me as a gentleman should."

"A gentleman!" Mr. Payson sneered. "I know what he is--he's a damned trickster. I've always suspected it, but since I kicked him out of my house I've had proof of it. I know his record"--he turned to Granthope--"from persons who know you well, sir!"

"I suppose you mean Vixley or Madam Spoll."

"You can't deny that they know you pretty well?"

"Your daughter knows more, I think. I have just taken the liberty of informing her as to just how much of a scoundrel I am."

"And you have the impertinence to consider yourself her social equal!"

"I think Miss Payson's position is sufficiently assured for her to be in no danger."

"Well, yours certainly is not. I've heard of your lady-killing. I suppose you want to add my daughter's scalp to your belt. Haven't you women enough running after you yet? So you wheedled her with a mock-confession--tried the cry-baby on her. Well, it won't work with me. I'll tell her all about you, don't be afraid!"

Clytie went to him and laid a hand gently upon his arm. "Father, we'll go, now, please. I can't bear this. You need only to look about you to see that, whatever Mr. Granthope has been, he is no longer a palmist. You see this room is already dismantled--if you'll only listen, I'll explain everything."

"It does look rather theatrical here." Mr. Payson looked at the piles of velvet on the floor, then turned again to the young man. "It seems that you have the audacity to want to marry my daughter. No doubt this little scene is a part of the game. It's very pretty, very effective. But let me tell you that this sensational tomfoolery won't be of any use. You are a charlatan, sir! You've always been one, and you always will be."

"Mr. Payson," Granthope said, with no trace of anger, "I can't deny that something of what you say is true, but your daughter knows that much already, and she has it from a better authority than yours. I can't blame you for your feeling in this matter; it's quite natural, for you don't know me. But I hope in time to induce you to believe in me. I wish you would let me begin by doing what should have done when I first met your daughter--warn you that you are in the hands of a dangerous set of swindlers who are deceiving you systematically. I can tell you a good deal that it will be greatly to your advantage to know about them."

The old man broke into ironic laughter. "That's just what they told me you'd say," he sneered. "They warned me that you'd try to libel them and accuse them of all sorts of impossible tricks. Set a thief to catch a thief, eh? No, that won't work, Mr. Granthope. I happen to know too much for that!"

"Won't you listen to what he has to say, father? It can do no harm. What do you know about those persons, after all? They are undoubtedly trying to deceive you," Clytie said earnestly.

Granthope added: "I can tell you of tricks they habitually practise."

"What's that to me? Haven't I got eyes? Haven't I common sense? Can you tell me how they find out things about my own life that no one living knows but me?"

"I can tell you how it was done in other cases--"

"Aha, I thought so--you can tell me, for instance, how to crawl through a trap in the mopboard, can't you? I'd rather hear how you impose on silly women, if you're going in for your confessions. What do you expect me to believe? I am quite satisfied with my own ability to investigate. I haven't lived for fifty years in the West to be imposed upon by flimflam. I'm not suffering from senile decay quite yet!"

He took Clytie to the door; there he paused dramatically, to deliver his parting shot.

"I notice you've hidden away that young woman you're living with. You might as well send for her--my daughter is not likely to be back again in a hurry."

As they left, Clytie gave him a look which denied her father's words.

Granthope waited till the hall door had slammed, then went into the office, where the red-haired boy was lolling out of the window.

"Jim," he said, laying his hand on the boy's shoulder, "I shall not need you any more. Here's your pay for the week. You needn't come back."

Jim shuffled into his coat, whistling, pulled on his cap, and left without a trace of regret. Granthope pulled a chair up to the grate. The dusk fell, and he still remained, watching the fire.

It was after six o'clock when a knock awoke him from his reverie. He called out a moody, annoyed, "Come in!" without rising.

Mrs. Page rustled in, bringing an odor of sandalwood. She was dressed in a squirrel-coat and a Cossack cap, from which a long veil floated. Her cheeks were rosy with the wind, her glossy hair coquetted over her forehead in dark, springy curls. She stopped, her head on one side, her arms saucily akimbo, as Granthope sprang up and snapped on the electric light.

"Oh, I'm _so_ glad I found you!" she bubbled. "You're run after so much now that I knew it was only a chance, my finding you in. I hope I didn't disturb you at silent prayer, or anything, did I? You looked terribly serious. Were you thinking of home and mother? If you don't look out, some day you'll be framed and labeled _Pictures in the Fire_. Now, you're angry with me! What's the matter? Don't frown, please; it isn't at all becoming!"

She walked up to him, her hand outstretched. Lightly he evaded her and forced a smile.

"What an iceberg you are, nowadays, Frank!" she laughed. "Don't be afraid; I'm not going to kiss you! It's only little Violet, the Pride of the Presidio. Please laugh! You used to think that was funny."

"Do have a seat, won't you?" he said, in a half-hearted attempt to conceal his distaste.

"Thanks, awfully, but really I can't wait. I just simply tore to get here, and I must go right off. You must come along with me; so get on your hat and coat." She looked about the room for them.

"What is it?" he asked without curiosity.

"Why, a dinner, of course! What else could it be at this time of day? It's Mr. Summer's affair, and I promised to get you."

"Mr. Summer is the latest, I suppose?"

She came back to him and took his coat by the two lapels, smiling up at him.

"That's mean, Frank! You know I never went back on you. But you as much as gave me notice, as if I was a servant-girl. Gay's a nice boy, and I like him--that's all. I'm educating him. Of course, he doesn't know what's what, yet, but he's rather fun. Do come--we're going to have dinner at the Poodle Dog, and the Orpheum afterward perhaps--Heaven knows where it'll end. There's an awfully swell New York girl coming, a Miss Cavendish, and she's simply _dying_ to meet you. You'll like her. She's a sport--you can't feaze her--and she's pretty enough to suit even you. You can have her all to yourself. Come on!"

"I'm sorry, but I can't go to-night," he said wearily.

"Oh, Frank, please! Not if I beg you?" She looked at him languishingly, and tried for his hand.

"Really, no! I'm sorry, but I'm too busy."

Mrs. Page pouted and turned slowly toward the door.

"I suppose you're afraid Gay'll bore you. I'll manage him. I've got him trained. Or, if you say so--we'll go alone? Just you and me. I can get rid of them, some way."

He shook his head decidedly.

"Did you have such a dull time the last time over at the Hermitage?" she tempted. "We might go there. I don't know _when_ I'll have another chance. Edgar will be back soon." She raised her brows meaningly.

"It's awfully good of you--but I can't, possibly."

"You might say you'd _like_ to!"

"I don't really care to, if you must have it!"

She bridled and tossed her head. "_Oh_, very well!" she sniffed, and was off in a huff.

Granthope went to the desk, and, taking a bunch of keys from his pocket, unlocked the two lower drawers. The first contained a collection of photographs of women. He drew them out in handfuls, stopping at one occasionally, or turning it over to see what was written upon it. The most were inscribed, on the back, or scrawled across the face, "To Mr. Granthope"--several "To Francis"--one or two "To Frank, with love." All types of beauty were represented, all sorts of costumes, all ages, all phases of pretty women's vanity. He looked at some with a puzzled expression, searching his memory for a clue to their identity. At a few he smiled sarcastically, at some he frowned. Once or twice his face softened to tenderness or pity. There was one of Fancy amongst them, showing her in costume. It had been taken years ago, while she was acting. He looked at it with a sort of wonder, she seemed so young, so girlish. On the back was written, "N.F.F.I.L." He put it back into the drawer and gathered up the others.

He made a heap of them and threw them upon the fire, then dropped into the arm-chair to watch them burn. The flames passed from face to face, licking up the features. It was like a mimic death.

The other drawer was filled with letters, tied into bunches. They were all addressed in feminine handwriting, mostly of the fashionable, angular sort. The envelopes were postmarked chiefly from San Francisco, but there were not a few from Eastern cities and abroad. One out of five bore special delivery stamps. A scent of mingled perfumes came from them. He cut the packages open and threw them into the wastebasket without stopping to read a word.