The Heart Line. Gelett Burgess
money—nor for fame either, for that matter. Fame's a gold brick; you always pay more for it than it's worth. I suppose it's the sheer love of the game. I have a scientific delight in doing my stunt better than it has ever been done before. Some play on fiddles, I play on women—and make 'em dance, too! Some love machinery, some study electricity—but the wireless, wheel-less mechanics of psychology for mine. Practical psychology with a human laboratory. Pour the acid of flattery, and human litmus turns red with delight. Try the alkali of disapproval, and it grows blue with disappointment. I give 'em a run for their money, too. I make life wonderful for poor fools who haven't the wit to do it for themselves. I peddle imagination, Fancy."
"You get good prices," Fancy said, smiling a bit sadly. "There are perquisites. There aren't many men who have the chances you do, Frank. Women are certainly crazy about you, and now that you're taken up by the smart set, I expect you will be spoiled pretty quick." She shook her head coquettishly and dropped her eyes.
He shrugged his shoulders. "I should think you would be almost ashamed of being a woman, Fan, sometimes," he said. "They are all alike, I believe."
Fancy bridled. Then she bit her lip. "You'll meet your match some day!"
"God, I hope so! It'll make things interesting. Nothing matters now. I haven't really wanted anything for years; and when you don't want anything, Fancy, the garlands are hung for you in every house."
"Did you ever have a conscience, Frank?"
"Not I. I shouldn't know what to do with it, if I had one. I don't see much difference between right and wrong. We give them what they want, as clergymen do. It may be true and it may be false. So may religion. There are a hundred different kinds—some of them teach that you ought to kill your grandmother when she gets to be fifty years old. Some teach clothing and some teach nakedness. Some preach chastity—and some the other thing. Who's going to tell what's right? My readings are scientific; my predictions may be true, for all I know. Some I help and some I harm, no doubt. But from all I can see, God Himself does that. Take that Bennett affair! He lost his money, but didn't he have a good taste of life? We'll never know the truth, anyway. Why not fool fools who think there's an answer to everything, and make 'em happy? Do you remember that first time we played for Harry Wing? I was new at it then. When I crawled through the panel and put on the robe, the tears were streaming down my face to think I was going to fool an old man into believing I was his dead son. What was the result? He was so happy that he gave me his gold watch to be dematerialized for identification. He got more solid satisfaction and comfort out of that trick than he had out of a year of sermons. I only wish I could fool myself as easily as I can fool others—then I could be happy myself."
"Why, aren't you happy, Frank?" Fancy asked, her eyes full of him. "I wish I could do something to make you happy—I'd do anything!"
"Oh, I'm not unhappy," he said lightly, neglecting her appeal. "I can't seem to suffer any more than I can really enjoy. I suppose I haven't any soul. I need ambition—inspiration. But we must get to work. Are you ready?"
Fancy nodded.
"August 5th," he dictated. "Mrs. Riley. Age sixty-five. Spatulate, extreme type. Wrist, B. Fingers, B, X, 5. Life 27. Head 18. Heart 4. Fate 12. 3 girdles. Venus B. Mars A. Thumb phalange over-developed. Right, ditto. Now:—married three times, arm broken in '94, one daughter, takes cocaine, interested in mines. Last husband knew General Custer and Lew Wallace. Accidentally drowned, 1877. Accused of murder and acquitted in 1878. Very poor.
"Don't forget to look up Lew Wallace, Fancy! Go down to the library to-night, will you?" he said, laying down his note-book.
"Where did you ever get that old dame?"
"Madam Spoll sent her here. She's easy, but no money in her. Still, I like to be thorough, even with charity cases; you never know what may come of them."
The telephone bell prevented Fancy's reply. She took up the receiver and said "Yes" in a languishing drawl.
"Yes. Number 15? .... Payson? Spell it .... Hold the line a minute." She turned to Granthope, her ear still to the receiver, her hand muffling the mouth-piece.
"Funny. Speak of angels—here's Madam Spoll now! She wants to know if you've got anything about Oliver Payson?"
"Payson?" he repeated. "Oliver Payson? No, I don't think so, have we?"
"I don't remember the name, but I'll run over the cards. Talk about method! I wish Madam Spoll had some! P., Packard, Page—no; no Payson here." She returned to the telephone. "No, we have nothing at all. Good-by." Then she hung up the receiver.
Granthope, meanwhile, had been walking up and down the room, frowning.
"It's queer—that name is somehow familiar; I've heard of it somewhere. Oliver Payson—Oliver Payson."
"Funny how you never can think of a thing when you want to," said Fancy, sharpening her pencil.
"I know something about Oliver Payson," Granthope insisted. "But it's no use, I can't get it. Perhaps it will come to me."
"You never know what you can do till you stop trying," Fancy offered sagely.
Granthope spoke abstractedly, gazing at the ceiling. "It's something about a picture, it seems to me."
He walked into his studio, still puzzling with blurred memories. Fancy took up The Second Wife.
At ten o'clock the door opened, and Fancy's hand flew to her back hair. A girl of perhaps twenty years with intense eyes entered timidly. Her hair was distracted by the wind and her color was high, increasing the charm of her pretty, earnest, finely freckled face. She wore a jacket a little too small for her, with frayed cuffs. Her shoes were badly worn; her hat was cheap, but effective.
"I called to see Mr. Granthope; I think I have an appointment at ten," she said.
"Miss Heller?" Fancy asked. The girl nodded. Fancy took inventory of the girl's points, looking her up and down before she replied, "All right; just be seated for a moment, please."
She walked to the studio and met Granthope coming out. They spoke in whispers.
"Let her down easy," Fancy suggested. "It's a love affair. She has a letter in her coat pocket, all folded up; you can see the wrinkles where it bulges out. Hat pin made of an army button, and she doesn't know enough to paint. Make her take off her coat and see if her right sleeve isn't soiled above where she usually wears a paper cuff to protect it. She is half frightened to death and she has been crying."
"All right," said Granthope. "I'll give her five dollars' worth of optimism."
Fancy put her hand in his softly. "Say, Frank, just charge this to me and be good to her, will you?"
"All right. If you like her, I'll do my best. She'll be smiling when she comes out, you see if she isn't."
As the girl went in for her reading, Mrs. Page walked into the reception-room, and nodded condescendingly. She was a dashing woman of thirty-five, full of the exuberance and flamboyant color of California. Her hair was jet black and glossy, massively coiled upon her head; her features were large, but regular and well formed; her figure somewhat voluptuous in its tightly fitting tailor suit of black. She was a vivid creature, with impellent animal life and temperament linked, apparently, to a rather silly, feminine brain. Her mouth was large, and in it white teeth shone. She was all shadows and flashes, high lights and depths of velvety black. From her ears, two spots of diamond radiance twinkled as she shook her head. When she drew off her gloves, with a manner, more twinkles illuminated her hands. Still others shone from the cut steel buckles of her shoes. She was somewhat overgrown, flavorless and gaudy, like California fruit, and her ways were kittenish. Her movements were all intense. When she looked at anything, she opened her eyes very wide; when she spoke she pursed her lips a bit too much. Altogether she seemed to have a superfluous ounce of blood in her veins that infused her with useless energy.
Fancy eyed her pragmatically, added her up, extracted her square root and greatest common divisor. The result she reached was evident only by the imperious way in which