Part 33

Maxim's chief contribution, a huge cartoon with caricatured portraits of his friends, had the place of honor; it was a superb piece of low comedy in crayons. Beyond this the sketches became more grotesque, the inscriptions more cryptic. Quotations from Rabelais, from Brantome, from Chesterton, Whistler and Wilde were scattered here and there, mingling with fiery burlesques of Bohemians, Philistines, lobsters and artists. No one, not even the authors, knew the point of most of these jokes well enough to explain them intelligibly, and it was this baffling suggestiveness which drew patrons to the restaurant and kept its charm piquant. One saw at each table new-comers with questioning faces pointing to legends in Greek and Esperanto and Yiddish, and wondering at the inscrutable accompaniment of illustration. It was a sort of mental and artistic hash spread upon the walls. The humor grew fiercer as one's eyes rose to the ceiling. There, a trail of monstrous footprints, preposterous, impossible, led, with divagations, to a point above the central table which was always reserved for the Pintos. To crown this elaborate nonsense, they had drawn a frieze below the cornice with panels containing the names of the frequenters of the place, alternated with such minor celebrities as Plato, Browning and Nietzsche.

In a larger city, such a place would have had a temporary vogue, and then, after having been "discovered" by reporters and artists, have sunk into the desuetude of impecunious rural diners-out, one of the places of which one says: "Oh, you should have seen it two years ago." But San Francisco is of that fascinating size, half-way between town and city, and of that interesting age where the old is not quite forgotten and the new not quite permanently instated,--it is, above all, so delightfully isolated that it need not ape the East. Though it has outgrown some of its Western crudities, it is significant that such a restaurant as Fulda's could become and remain a resort for the gathering of the cleverest spirits in town. It had already achieved that reputation; it was patronized by the arts. The visitors, for the most part, either did things or wanted to. One was apt to know almost everybody there. If one didn't know Mr. Smith, one's friend did; or one knew Mr. Smith's friend.

To this place entered Fancy Gray, drifter, the day after the materializing seance, in a new, blue mackintosh and a pert but appropriate hat. She nodded, to Felix, at the counter, and, following underneath the trail of footprints on the ceiling, came, jovially as ever, to the central table. Dougal, Elsie and Benton were sitting at the far end of it. Dougal sprang up with a grin.

"Come and sit down quickly and tell us all about it!" he exclaimed. "What happened after we left?"

She sat on the side of a chair without removing her coat, and gave them her ever-ready smile. "Say, you didn't raise a rough house or anything, did you? I thought it would be a case for the coroner before you got through. If I'd known you were going to be there I wouldn't have been in the cast. Wasn't it awful? Madam Spoll was pretty badly burned, I hear."

"I hope I'll never have to see anything as horrible as that again," said Benton. "But I did what I could. I hope she'll recover."

"We waited till the police and the ambulance came and then we got out," Dougal added. "There was nothing more to do but testify. Did you see the account of it in the paper? I believe they're going to have more about it, and play it up for all it's worth. What became of you, Fancy? Last I saw of you you had skipped into that back room."

"Oh, as soon as I had put on my shoes, I got out as quick as I could by the back way. I didn't know whether the house was going to be pulled or not. I'd had trouble enough for one evening. I'm all black and blue now, from Dougal's holding me."

"How did Vixley feel, I wonder? He must have been pretty sore."

"Sore! I guess he was, in more ways than one. But Flora Flint was the funniest! They found her in the cabinet, half dressed, after all the crowd was cleared out--she had been afraid to move."

"How did you happen to be there, anyway, Fancy?" Elsie asked. "I thought you hadn't done anything with that medium crowd for years."

It was not often that Fancy was embarrassed, but she seemed so, now.

"I haven't. I don't know why I did--except--they asked me, and I wanted to oblige somebody--and I needed the money. I had forgotten I had told you to go to Flora's."

"Aren't you going to eat?" Dougal asked. Fancy usually dined at the central table several times a week. Cayley's attentions were already on the wane.

"No, I've got free eggs to-night," was the reply.

Her eyes had been on the door of the restaurant, and, at this moment, they were rewarded by the sight of Blanchard Cayley, who entered and looked about the room for her. "Well, I'm going to meet my royal meal-ticket," she said, rising and waving a hand at him. He nodded, and came down to her, bowing to several friends on the way, and the two took a table beyond the Pintos. She faced Dougal who made disapproving faces at Cayley's back.

The room filled up. One long table was decorated, with flowers, and a party of ladies and gentlemen from up-town soon came in and took seats there. They began immediately to chatter and look about the walls, commenting upon the decorations. At other tables Fancy saw artists, newspaper men and men about town, who had been pointed out to her before. To some of them she nodded. Cayley knew many more. It was like a great family dining-room.

"Well?" said Cayley, in his peculiar tone that made of one word a whole sentence.

"I evidently made a hit. I hope you're satisfied, now."

"You certainly brought down the house." There was a sarcastic, almost a surly note in his voice.

"I'm awfully sorry things went wrong, Blan," she said. "I wouldn't have done it if I'd known the crowd was going to be there. I'm sorry now I consented to take part. I hope I'll never see Vixley again. He was horrid to me."

"I've seen Vixley. He says Madam Spoll isn't expected to live."

"Isn't it awful? I didn't want to do it, Blan, you know I didn't; I wouldn't have done it for anybody but you. I don't see how you can bear to have anything to do with Vixley. Ugh! What _did_ you want me to do it for, anyway?"

"Oh, only to find out some things, that's all. Of course I couldn't do it myself, could I?"

It was evident, now, that he had been drinking. He had not shown it in his walk or in his voice, but there was a slight glaze to his eyes that told the story. He had been abstinent for so long that Fancy wondered at it. He ordered a flask of chianti and poured two glasses.

"You oughtn't to begin again, Blan--don't!" she said anxiously. "Water's good enough for me."

"Pshaw! Don't worry, I'm all right. You don't think I'm drunk, do you?" He laughed harshly.

"N--no, but I don't like it."

"Forget it, Fan; nobody ever saw me drunk. I only get confidential, that's all. _In vino veritas_. There's a double meaning there. Exoteric and esoteric."

At this moment the waiter appeared with a stone bottle and two Chinese cups. "Mr. Dougal sent this over with his compliments. It's _sake_," he explained. Fancy kissed her hand to Dougal, and poured for herself and Cayley.

"Ugh! It's horrible!" she said. "Isn't it?"

"No, it's the real thing; I like it." Cayley drank it all and helped himself to more.

"Did you find out what you wanted to know?" said Fancy, proceeding with her dinner daintily.

"No, the row came just in time to queer the whole thing."

"Of course you know that if Dougal had had any idea it was me--"

"Oh, it wasn't Dougal, it was old man Payson--he caught on--"

Fancy laid down her fork, and narrowed her eyes. "_Payson?_" she repeated.

"Yes, of course; the old chap you were talking to, weren't you?"

She looked at him with a strange expression. "Payson? I didn't think--I was too excited to realize--I mean--who is he, Blan?" Her hands fell into her lap and clasped one another tightly.

"Oh, an old boy I know, a good sort, but a fool. No fool like an old fool, is there?" He poured another glass of chianti, without noticing how intense she had grown. His eyes were dallying with two good-looking girls across the room.

"Is Miss Payson--the one who was with you at Carminetti's--his daughter?"

He looked up at her sharply, now, but her frown meant nothing to him. He returned to his tagliarini. "Yes--why?" he said.

"Tell me about her, Blan, please," Fancy begged, with an unusual air of anxiety.

"Nothing to tell, except she's a disdainful beauty, and a little too haughty for me. Fastidious, pre-Raphaelite, and super-civilized and all that. You wouldn't care for her, any more than you would for a Utamaro." He smiled to himself at what Fancy had once said of Japanese prints.

"H'm!" Fancy put her chin in her hands, and kept her eyes on Cayley. "So that old gentleman was her father," she said in a low unimpassioned voice. "It was Miss Payson's father I was hired to fool!" Suddenly she spoke up more sharply, but with a tremor in her voice. "What did you want me to play spirit for, Blan? Out with it!"

He saw now that something was wrong. It made him peevish.

"What do you know about Miss Payson, anyway?" he demanded.

"I've--seen her."

"Well, what did you think of her?"

"I thought she was a thoroughbred."

"Indeed?" Cayley thought it over, looking somewhat abstractedly at a picture on the wall, entitled: "_Je congnois la faulte des Boesmes._" Then he turned with an open countenance to her and said, with an air of candor:

"You see, Fancy, I happened to know Payson was in the clutches of Vixley and this Spoll woman--they were sucking his blood. I thought I could rescue him if you would play spirit, and then tell Payson afterwards what a fraud it all was. Understand now?" He smiled blandly.

"I see," she said, and went on with her dinner.

"Then again," Cayley remarked, "I thought you wouldn't mind getting even with Granthope."

This brought her up again with an angry flush. "What has he got to do with it?"

"Well, he played it rather low down on you, didn't he?"

"What d'you mean?"

"Oh, he fired you."

"He didn't! I left of my own accord." Fancy's lie came impetuously.

"Did you know that he's after Miss Payson, now?"

"So I've heard."

"You're remarkably amiable about it, my dear. You didn't really care for him, then?" His smile was unendurable.

"I never explain. If people can't understand without explanations, they never can with them."

"Then you don't mind it at all?" he insisted.

"No--I don't mind it. I'm glad." The words came from her slowly, this time.

"What d'you mean?"

Fancy was silent.

"Well, don't you think he ought to be--shown up a little?" He was on his third cup of _sake_, but his hand was as steady as ever.

Her lips parted, and her breath came suddenly for an exclamation, but the protest got no further than her eyes. She dropped them to the table-cloth, where she marked crosses with her little finger-nail. Dougal was making overt attempts to attract her attention and the diversion was maddening.

"What d'you mean?" she asked.

"If you were really a good enough friend of mine to help me out--"

"Oh, I'll help you out, Blan; what d'you want me to do?" she said quite eagerly, now. He did not notice her suppressed excitement.

"Well--I suppose you know a good deal about him?"

She nodded wisely.

"And some things, I suppose, might make considerable difference if they came out? You know what I mean."

"Do you want me to tell them?" she flung fiercely at him.

He took alarm, and, reaching across the table, attempted to touch her hand. She evaded him. "Of course I don't want you to do anything dishonorable--but--you said yourself she was a thoroughbred--do you think it's quite the square thing to stand by and let a man like him marry a nice girl like Miss Payson?"

"I thought you said she was supercilious!"

"No, super-civilized, that's all. Call it statuesque. But all the same I hate to see her get stung--don't you, now? Come!" He leaned back and folded his arms.

"She's too haughty for you, I thought!"

"Did I say that? Well, I'm a friend of the family, you know--I want to do what I can for them."

She reached nervously for her wine-glass, and her hand, trembling, struck the chianti flask and tipped it over. Before she could set it straight it had spilled into a plate, drenching a napkin which lay partly folded there. The linen was turned blood red. Cayley laughed at her carelessness loudly. Dougal looked across again, but Fancy avoided his eye.

"Blan," she said, leaning slightly towards him and speaking low, "do you love me? Or are you just playing with me?"

He seemed to consider it. Then he said, very earnestly, and evidently with a subtle psychological intent, "I'm only playing with you, Fancy!" And he smiled.

Her fingers drummed on the table.

"But I'll never treat you the way Granthope did," he added.

Her hands came together again in her lap. "That'll be all about Granthope," she said through her teeth.

"See here," he insisted, "you know what a cad he's been as well as I do! He's trying to marry Miss Payson, damn him! I've seen her with him often. If you'll just go up to her and tell her a few things--you needn't violate any confidences--just enough to put her on her guard--we can head him off and spoil that game!"

"Oh!" Fancy's breast heaved violently. "I _see_!" she exclaimed slowly. Her eyes blazed at him. "So _that's_ what you've been after all this time, is it? I think I know you now, Blanchard Cayley!"

Her eyes did not leave him as her right hand stole over the cloth, reaching for the wine-soaked napkin, and grasped its dry end. Slowly she rose from her seat, stood up, and leaned far over the table towards him.

Then, raising her hand suddenly, she struck him as with a flail, once, twice across the cheek, across the eyes, leaving a purple stain whose drops trickled down into his beard. The sound was heard all over the room, and drew all eyes. For a moment she watched him put up his arm to ward off the blows; then, with a gasping sob, she turned and ran swiftly down to the door and out into the street.

Cayley, his face now reddened not only by the wine, but from the furious flush which burned in his cheeks, sat for a moment as if paralyzed. Then he wiped the mark with his napkin, automatically. His face worked like a maniac's. He rose deliberately, reached for his hat and strode down the aisle after her.

Dougal saw the pursuit just in time. Quickly his foot shot out into the passage, and Cayley, passing, tripped over it, and fell headlong upon the floor. Dougal, cigarette in mouth, leaped out of his chair and held him lightly. Benton jumped up and stood by him, ready. Cayley was mumbling curses. They helped him up politely, and Dougal muttered:

"Go back to your table, Mr. Cayley, and sit down there for five minutes. If you don't, by God, I'll kill you!"

The room buzzed with exclamations; every one stared.

Cayley stared sullenly, his mouth open, then turned back and sat down and put his hands to his forehead, leaning on the table.

Dougal conferred with Benton. "You wait here, Benton, and wherever Cayley goes, you follow him. I'm going out after Fancy. There'll be the hell to pay to-night if we don't find her. I've never seen her that way before, and it looks like trouble to me!"

With that, he hurried out of the restaurant.

She had run out into the rain without either coat or umbrella. Turning down Commercial Street in the direction of the ferry, she walked hurriedly, as if bent on some special errand; but, at the foot of Market Street, she hesitated, then crossed, walked along East Street past the water-front, saloons and sailors' boarding-houses, stumbling and slipping on the uneven, reeking, board sidewalks. Then she went up Howard Street, dark and gloomy, all the way to Fourth Street. Here she made back for the lights of Market Street, crossed, looked idly in at a drug store window for fully five minutes. A man came up and accosted her jocosely. She turned and stared at him without replying a word, and he walked away.

Then, almost running, now, she flew straight for Granthope's office. Looking up from the street, she saw a light in his window. She ran up the stairs and paused for a moment to get her breath outside his office door. Just at that moment a voice came to her from inside, and then a man's answered, followed by a chorus of soft laughter. She stood transfixed, biting her lip nervously, listening. The woman's voice went on, evenly.

Fancy staggered slowly down the stairs and went out again into the storm. Down Geary to Market Street, down Market Street, hopelessly, aimlessly. Here the rain beat upon her mercilessly in great sheets. Again she stopped, looking up and down wildly. Finally she turned the corner and went into the ladies' entrance of the "Hospital." A waiter led her to a booth where she could be alone.

The "Hospital" was, perhaps, the most respectable saloon in the city where women were permitted. The whole rear of the establishment was given over to a magnificently fitted-up department devoted to such women as were willing to be seen there. One might go and still retain a certain relic of good-repute, if one went with a man--there were married women enough who did, and reckless girls, too, who took the risk; but it was on the frontier of vice, where amateur and professional met.

From a wide, carpeted passage booths opened to right and left; little square rooms, with partitions running up part way, screened off with heavy red plush portieres hanging from brass rods. Each of these compartments was finished in a different kind of rare wood, handsomely designed. Arching from a heavy, molded cornice, where owls sat at stately intervals, an elaborately coffered ceiling rose, and in the center was suspended a globe of cathedral glass, electric lighted, glowing like a full moon.

Fancy hung up her jacket to dry and ordered a hot lemonade. Then she went down to the telephone and called up Gay P. Summer's house number. She got him, at last, and asked him, tremulously, to come down to the "Hospital" and see her. She would wait for him. He seemed surprised, but she would not explain, and, after a short discussion, he consented. She went back to the "Toa" room and waited, sipping her drink.

All about her was a persistent babble of voices, the women's raucous, hard and cold, mingled occasionally with the guffaws of men. Across the way, through an opening of the portieres, she could see an over-dressed girl tilted back in her chair puffing a cigarette. White-aproned waiters passed and repassed, looking neither to the right nor left.

She was staring fixedly at the wall, her elbows on the table, her chin on the backs of her hands, when Gay entered a little crossly. She looked up with a smile--almost her old winning smile--though it drooped in a moment and was set again with an effort.

"Hello, Gay, here I am again!" she said. She gave him her cold little hand.

He drew off his rain coat and sat down, as fresh and pink as ever, the drops still glistening on his cheeks. "What's up?" he said, touching the electric button and pulling out his cigarette case.

"I'm through with Blanchard Cayley," she said, watching him.

"It's about time," he remarked.

"Aren't you glad to see me, Gay?"

"Sure!" he answered, without looking at her. He scratched a match, and, after he had lighted his cigarette, looked up at the waiter who appeared in the doorway. "Two Picon punches," he said. Then he turned to her and folded his arms.

"What can I do for you, Fancy?"

He seemed, somehow, to have grown ten years older since the time they had frolicked together at the beach. His cheek was as blooming, his figure as boyish, but his eyes were a little harder. His voice showed a little more confidence, and his pose was quite that of the man of the world. Much of his charm had gone.

"Gay," she said, "we were pretty good friends, once."

"That's what we were, Fancy. How much do you need?"

She recoiled as if he had struck her and buried her face in her arms on the table. Her shoulders shook convulsively. "Oh, I didn't want to graft, Gay, don't think that! That's not what I called you up for, really it isn't!"

"What was it, then?" he asked, growing a little more genial.

The waiter appeared with two glasses on a tray and set them down on the table. Fancy looked up and wiped her eyes. When they were alone again he said, "Fire away, now. I've got a date at ten. I'm sorry I said that, but I didn't know but you were hard up, that's all."

"Gay," she said, "do you remember what you said that day we went down to Champoreau's the first time?"

"I believe I said all that crowd had the big head, didn't I?"

"That isn't it, Gay. I wonder if you've forgotten already?"

"I guess I have. Lots of things have happened since that." He blew a lung-full of smoke into the air over her head.

"You've said it several times since then. Do you happen to remember asking me to marry you?"

"I believe I did make a break like that, now you speak of it. And you threw me down good and hard, too."

She got his eyes, and smiled. "You said that--whenever I changed my mind and gave the word--you'd marry me."

"Did I?" Gay moved uncomfortably in his chair.

"You did, Gay, and when you said it, I thought you meant it. I believe you did mean it then. Oh, Gay, dear, I want to quit drifting! I want to settle down and be a good wife to some man who'll take care of me, some one I can love and help and be faithful to! Oh, you don't know how faithful I'd be, Gay! I'd do anything. I'm so tired of drifting--I'm so afraid I'll go on like this! I'm not a grafter, Gay, you know I'm not! But I want to get married and be happy!"

"You ought to have said that two months ago," he said, knocking the ash from his cigarette with exquisite attention.

"Don't you want me now?" she said, shaking her head pathetically. She reached for his hand. "I like you, Gay, I've always liked you and I think I could learn to love you sometime. But I'd be true to you, anyway. Take me, please, Gay! I can't stand it any longer."

"For Heaven's sake, don't talk so loud, Fancy; somebody'll hear you! Say, this isn't fair! I gave you a good chance, and you threw me down. Why didn't you take me then? I was crazy about you, but no, you wouldn't have it!"

"Then you've got all over it? You don't want me now?"

He had a sudden access of pity, and stroked her hand. "Why, I couldn't make you happy, Fancy? You know that. You wouldn't have me marry you if I wasn't in love with you, would you? I suppose I have got over it; I was fascinated, and I thought it was the real thing. We all make mistakes. I've been about a good bit since then, and I know more of the world. I'm sorry, but it's too late."

She looked away, and for a moment her eyes closed.

"I guess nobody wants me, then. Men get tired of me, don't they? I'm good enough to play with for a little while, but--I can't make good as a wife. Never mind. I thought perhaps you were in earnest, that's all. I'm sorry I bothered you. You can go, now!"

He went up to her and put his hand on her shoulder. She shook it off, shuddering. "Go _away_!" she cried.

He took his hat and left her.