“ 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. ”

“ Her eyes, fluttering, went from Clytie's eyes to Clytie's hair, to her slender, gracile hands. Then, with a wistful emphasis, she said:
"Miss Payson, do you think I'm pretty?"
There was no need, this time, for her to define the adjective.
"Do you want me to tell you exactly?" Clytie answered. "I never saw a woman yet to whom I couldn't tell her best points better than she could herself."
Fancy nestled a little nearer, warming herself at Clytie's smile. "I guess I can stand it. I'll try to be brave," she said. ”

“ Many go and never return. A few come back to breathe again the stimulating air of California, to see with new eyes its fresh, vivid color, its poetry, its romance. To have gone East and to have returned without abject failure is here, in the eyes of the vulgar, Art's patent of nobility. Of those who have been content to linger peaceably in the land of the lotus, some are earls without coronets, but one and all share a fierce, hot, passionate love of the soil. San Francisco has become a fetish, a cult. Under its blue skies and driving fogs is bred the most ardent loyalty in these United States. ”

“ But we can break you, Frank Granthope; we can bust your business and queer you with this swell push, easy, not to speak of Clytie Payson."
"Well, then," said Granthope, rising and taking his hat, "go ahead and do it! We might just as well settle this thing now. Smash my business—I don't care; I wish you would! Ruin any social ambition I may be fool enough to have—it'll serve me right for caring for such nonsense. Tell Miss Payson all you know—it'll save me the shame of telling her myself. God knows I wish she did know it! I'm getting sick of the whole dirty game." ”

“ As he corrected that mistake with a blush for his worldly innocence, he saw what the game with her alone could be—his game transferred from the plane of chicanery to the level of an intimate friendship—or even love. He saw how she would play it, how she would hold his interest, keeping him intellectually alive with the subtlety of her character.
So far he had not taken her seriously; he had reveled in the possibility of a love affair, but he had not even contemplated the possibility of a permanent alliance. As Madam Spoll had said, he had had his pick of women—and each had ended by boring him. ”

“ Her mouth trembled; her gaze was serious.
"But it would be so kind of you to come!" Clytie urged.
Fancy smiled wanly. "I can't do it, Miss Payson, I won't explain. I never explain. It bores me. But I simply can't."
"Well, you know, if you ever do want to come—"
"I'll come, sure!" Fancy looked at her now, with fire in her eyes, not flaming, but burning deep. "Whenever I forget what a thoroughbred is like, I'll come! Whenever I need a teaspoonful of flattery to last me over night, I'll come! Whenever I want to know how much finer and kinder women are than men, I'll come! ”

“ Every eye followed her.
At the counter she turned her head to see Blanchard Cayley still standing by his place. She came hurriedly back as if drawn by some magic spell, blushing hotly, with a strange look in her eyes. She looked up at him as a little girl might look up at her father. The room was hushed. It was too much for that audience to comprehend. The act had almost lost its effrontery; the audacity had become, somehow, pathos.
Fancy walked like a somnambulist, her eyes wide open, staring at Blanchard. ”

“ Then I'll be more natural. I'm always stiff and stupid when people call me Miss Gray. I always feel as if they were talking about me behind my back." Fancy's smile broke out now, as if in spite of herself.
"I'd love to call you Fancy! It's good of you to let me!" Clytie answered.
Her smile was as delicious, in this gallant interchange. Fancy's smile seemed as much a part of her natural expression as the brightness of her open eyes; it was embracing, like a baby's. Clytie's had the effect of a particularly gracious favor, almost a condescension, a special gift of the moment. ”

“ So the stranger beholds San Francisco, the Improbable. Its pageantry is unrolled for all to see at first glance. Never was a city so prodigal of its friendship and its wealth. She salutes one on every crossing, welcoming the visitor openly and frankly with her western heart. In every little valley where the slack, rattling cables of her car-lines slap and splutter over the pulleys, some great area of the town exhibits a rising colony of blocks stretching up and over a shoulder of the hill to one side and to the other. ”

“ But it was for Clytie that Fancy Gray reserved her warmest, deepest look. In that glance she threw herself upon Miss Payson's mercy, and appealed to the innate chivalry of woman to woman, to the bond of sex—a sentiment in finer women more potent than jealousy.
Even before she spoke Clytie had arisen and stretched out her hand. In a flash she had accepted what had run counter to all her experience, and played up to Fancy's audacity with a spirit that ignored the crowd, the eyes, the whispers. ”

“ Heavy eyebrows, heavy lips, heavy ears and cheeks had Madam Spoll, but her forehead was unlined with wrinkles; her expression was serene, and, when she smiled, engaging and conciliating. She was dressed in black satin with wing-like sleeves, the front of her waist being covered with a triangular decoration of bead-work.
Watching her with roving, black eyes was Professor Vixley, smoking a vile cigar. His face was sallow, of a predatory mold with a pointed, mangy beard, and sharp, yellow teeth. He wore a soft, striped flannel shirt with a flowing pink tie. ”

“ Francis Granthope, after the Chinese supper, had found himself swayed by an obsession. The thought of Clytie Payson was insistent in his mind. She troubled him. He recognized the symptom with a grim sense of its ridiculousness. It was, according to his theory, the first sign of love; but the idea of his being in love was absurd. Certainly he desired her, and that ardently. She stimulated him, she stirred his fancy. But he was jealous of his freedom; he would not be snared by a woman's eyes. ”

“ Go up, and tell her everything. It is better for you to tell her. Cayley will resent your appearance, but don't mind that—get rid of him at any cost. You will have to manage him. If Clytie is in love with you, I'll stand by her in whatever she says. Don't think I'm a doting fool, Granthope, that I veer with the wind, this way. I wanted her to marry Cayley, because I thought she'd never know this, and he was a man of honor and intelligence. But I didn't know that Felicia's boy was alive. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The mountains surrounding the bay of San Francisco were wild and terrible, with naked brown slopes void of trees or grass. To the northwest they came down to the very edge of the water, tumbling precipitately, seamed with gulleys, forming the wall of the Golden Gate. Southward was smoke and haze; forward the peninsula loomed through murk. The whole aspect of the harbor was barren, chill, desolate. One felt that one was thousands of miles from civilization—in a land unique, grim, isolate, sufficient unto itself, shut off by sea and mountain from the great world. ”

“ Then she sighed and turned her eyes off to the darkling water.
"No one ever made love to suit me, somehow—men are queer—they're so blind—they seem to know so little about the things that mean a lot to a woman." She shivered. "It's getting chilly, isn't it. I'm cold."
"Shall I get you a wrap?"
She took his arm and placed it about her shoulder. "That'll do," she said.
"Fancy, you are adorable—you're absolutely complete. You're unique—you're a nonpareille!"
"I'd rather be a peach," she confessed, snuggling closer.
"You are, Fancy—a clingstone! I'd like to kiss you to death." ”

“ She gave him a smile of limpid simplicity, but her jaws were set determinedly. "I expect I can get some one to take care of me. Don't mind me!"
Their discussion had not been unnoticed at Mr. Cayley's table. Clytie was watching the pair interestedly, as if reading the motions of their lips. Fancy caught her eye and flushed a little.
Gay's brows gathered together in a sullen look as he crowded his hat upon his head savagely. He turned with a last retort:
"You'll be sorry you threw me down, Fancy Gray! You want too many men on the string at once!" ”

“ Fancy's face had varied in phase, like the opening and shutting of the clouds. Now it was eager, rapt "Oh, I understand, now!" she cried, jumping up.
"Why, Miss Payson, Vixley can no more be trusted than a gambler! Don't you know that he's wild with Frank? Vixley's got it in for him; he is trying to ruin him! Don't you know that Frank has been trying to buy him off, just to save your father from being cheated by them? Why, Frank offered Vixley a thousand dollars to leave town, only last week. Vixley told me so himself!" ”

“ Fancy, pulling her jacket behind, wriggling, and smoothing down her skirt over her hips, walked to the window and cast a glance out. Then she slammed the drawers of her desk, put a hair-pin between the leaves of her novel, straightened her pen-holders on the stand, stoppered a red-ink bottle, and marched out without looking to the left or to the right.
Madam Spoll glared at her in silence till she had gone; and then, with an agility extraordinary in so stout a woman, she sprang to the closet, opened the door and picked up an envelope lying on the floor. ”

“ Oh, Fancy, don't you understand? It was the sort of thing that no woman could forget. It was of no importance except as showing that he wasn't so far along as I had thought. It merely means that I'll have to wait for him. And I shall wait for him. I'm so sure of him that I can wait, though it hurt so at first that I couldn't possibly see him. That's all."
Fancy bit her lip. There was a little, determined shake of her head that Clytie did not see. "Miss Payson," she said, "you must tell me what it was. I've heard Professor Vixley say a thing or two that aroused my suspicions." ”

“ There was a novelty and excitement about the rain, a relief after the parched, monotonous months of cloudless skies. Men and women walked the streets smiling, the women especially; for that free, fearless gaiety, the almost abandoned good nature of San Francisco girls, was not to be quenched.
On Thursday evening, Fancy Gray, to all appearance her old, gay self, smiling as if she had never a care in the world, went down to Fulda's to dine with Blanchard Cayley.
In a city of restaurants, Fulda's restaurant was unique. The Pintos had discovered the place, and by their own efforts had made it. ”

“ Granthope walked quickly into his studio without answering.
He seated himself thoughtfully and looked about him, still holding the white glove caressingly in his hand. His eye traveled from the electric-lighted table, round the black velvet arras, to the panel where the signs of the zodiac were embroidered in gold: then his eyes closed. He sat silent for ten minutes or so, then he drew his hand through his heavy black hair and across his brow. His eyes opened; he arose; a faint whimsical smile shone on his face. ”

“ In the reception-room, Fancy was yawning; seeing them, she brought her hand quickly to her mouth and raised her eyebrows at Granthope. He made no sign in reply. Clytie walked up to her impulsively and held out her hand.
"I do hope I'll see you again, sometime," she said.
Fancy laughed. "I do, too. You're the only one who's ever really appreciated me. You make me almost wish I was a lady." By her tone, there was some old wound that bled.
"You're that, and better, I'm sure," Clytie answered softly; "you're yourself!" ”

“ Madam Spoll came in smiling, unruffled as if her face had been freshly ironed out.
"I been walking lately, to reduce my flesh, but, Lord, I get such an appetite I eat more'n enough to balance," she panted, as she lowered herself carefully upon the quilted couch and crushed back into a sofa pillow, whereon was painted a fencing girl with a heart on her plastron. She loosened her beaded cape, and breathed heavily in relief.
"Well, I managed to get here, after all! What d'you think? Mrs. Riley has been to me for a private setting. Do you recall her, Vixley? ”