The Heart Line. Gelett Burgess
There was something delightful to him in this rapid transfer of wordless thought. It again established an intimacy between them. That she acknowledged such a relation by anticipating another meeting, an inevitable one, charmed him the more. He might win, after all, with such assistance from her. Her power of intuition aroused his curiosity—he longed to experiment with it. She was a new plaything which he had yet to learn to handle. Before, he had dominated her easily enough; he might do so again.
"Miss Payson," he said, "won't you come down to my studio again sometime? I'd like to make a more careful examination of your hand, and perhaps I can help you in developing your psychic sense."
"Oh, no, thank you. Really, I can't come again—I shall be pretty busy for a while—I have to go to the Mercantile Library every afternoon, looking up material for my father's book—and, after all, I got what I wanted."
"What did you want?"
"Partly to see you."
He bowed. "Curiosity?"
"Let's call it interest."
"You had no faith, then, in my palmistry?"
"Very little."
"Yet you acknowledge that I told you some things that were true?"
"Haven't I told you several things about yourself, too?"
"I'd like to hear more."
"Oh, I've said too much, already."
"Let's see. That I am more or less of a villain—"
"But a most interesting one!"
"That I have met you before—"
"Not perhaps 'met'—"
"That Fancy Gray is in love with me—"
"Oh, I didn't say that!"
"But you suspect it?"
"If I did, it was impertinent of me. It's none of my business."
"Well, you won't come again—you've quite satisfied your curiosity by seeing me?"
"Quite. I've confirmed all my suspicions."
"What were they?"
Clytie laughed. "Really, you're pushing me a little too hard, Mr. Granthope. I'd be glad to have you call here, sometime, if you care to. But my psychic powers are quite keen enough already. They rather frighten me. I want them only explained. As I say, it's embarrassing, sometimes. I hate to speak of what I feel—it's all so groundless and it sounds silly."
"You know more, then, than you mention?"
"Oh, much!"
"About me, for instance?"
"Yes. But it's vague and indefinite. It needn't worry you."
"Even though you disapprove?"
She laughed again. "You may take that as a compliment, if you like."
He nodded. "It is something that you care."
"I'm mainly curious to see what you'll do—"
"Oh, you're expecting something, then?"
"I'm watching to see. I confess I shall watch you. I said that you interested me—that's what I mean. You're going to—well, change."
As she stood between him and the light her soft hair showed as fine and crisp as spun glass. Her lips were sensitively curved with a flitting smile, her eyes were dreamy again. Everything about her bespoke a high spiritual caste, but, to Granthope, this only accented the desirability of her bodily self—it would make her the greater prize, unlike anything he had, so far, been able to win. He had an epicure's delight in feminine beauty, and he knew how its flavor should be finely tinctured by mind and soul; even beauty was not exciting without that, and of mere beauty he had his fill. Besides, she had unexpected reserves of emotion that he was continually tempted to arouse. But so far he had hopelessly misplayed his part, and he longed to prove his customary skill with women.
"Well," he said finally, offering his hand, "I hope I'll be able to satisfy you, sooner or later. I'll come, soon, for a report!"
"Oh, my mood may have changed, by that time."
He gave her the farewell amenities and went down the path to the gate. There he turned and saw her still watching him. He waved his hat and went down the steps, his mind restless with thoughts of her.
Clytie remained a while in the arbor. The fog had begun to come in now with a vanguard of light fleecy clouds riding high in the air, closing the bay in from all sides. The massive bank behind followed slowly, tinted with opal and rose from the setting sun. It settled down, shutting out her sight of the water, and its cohorts were soon scurrying past her on their charge overland from ocean to harbor. The siren at Point Bonita sighed dismally across the channel. It soon grew too cold to remain longer in the garden, and she went into the house shivering, lighted an open fire in the library and sat down.
For half an hour she sat there in silence, inert, listless, lost in thought, her eyes on the blurred landscape mystic with driving fog. The room grew darker, illuminated only by the fitful flashes of the fire. Her still, relaxed figure, fragile and delicate as an ivory carving, was alternately captured and hidden by the shadow and rescued and restored by the sudden gleam from the hearth. She had not moved when her father's step was heard in the hall. He came in, benignly sedate. His deep voice vibrated through the room.
"Well, Cly, dreaming again?"
She started at the sound and came out of her reverie to rise and greet him affectionately. He put down some books and a package of papers and lighted the chandelier, exchanging commonplaces with her—of her bookbinding work, which she confessed to have shirked; of the weather, with a little of old age's querulous complaint of rheumatic touches; of the black cat, which was their domestic fetish and (an immortally interesting topic to him) of the vileness and poisonous quality of San Francisco illuminating gas. His voice flowed on mellifluously with unctuous authority, as he seated himself in his arm-chair beneath the lamp, shook out his evening paper and rattled its flapping sheets.
Clytie evinced a mild interest in his remarks, smiled gently at his familiar vagaries, answering when replies should be forthcoming, in her low, even, monotonously pitched tones. She questioned him perfunctorily about the book he was writing, an absorbing avocation with him, warding off his usual disappointment at her lack of sympathy by involving herself in a conversational web of explanation regarding Foreign Trade Expansion, Reciprocal Profits and The Open Door in the Orient.
"There's not much use working on it at the office," he concluded. "I'm too liable to interruptions."
"Who interrupted you to-day?" she asked.
"Oh, there was a queer chap in this afternoon, an insurance solicitor; Wooley, his name was. I told him I didn't want an accident policy, but I happened to tell him about that time on the Oakland Mole, when I got caught between two trains in the Fourth of July crush—you remember? and he told me about all the narrow escapes he ever heard of, trying to get me to go into his company. Funny dog he was. He kept me laughing and talking with him for an hour. Then Blanchard came in. He says he's coming around to-night." He hesitated and scanned her intently through his gold-bowed glasses, under his bushy brows. "I hope you will treat him well, Cly."
Her face grew serious and her sensitive lips quivered, as she said:
"Why do you like Mr. Cayley so much, father?"
"Why, he's a very intelligent fellow, Cly; I don't know of another young man of his age who is really worth talking to. He knows things. He has a broad outlook and a serious mind. He's the kind of young man we need to take hold of political and commercial reform. I tell you, the country is going to the dogs for lack of men who are interested in anything outside of their own petty concerns. Why, he's the only one I know who really seems interested in oriental trade and all its development means to the Pacific slope. That's