The Heart Line 27

The Heart Line 27

SIDE LIGHTS*

 

 

"Mrs. Chenoweth Maxwell would be very glad to see Mr. Francis

Granthope next Friday evening at nine o’clock for an informal

Chinese costume supper. Kindly arrive masked."

 

 

This invitation marked a climacteric in Granthope’s social career. It

was supplemented by an explanation over the telephone that left no doubt

in the mind of the palmist as to the genuineness and friendliness of its

cordiality. He had appeared already at several assemblies of the

smarter set and had, by this time, a considerable acquaintance with the

fashionable side of town. Of the information thus acquired he had made

good use in his business. He had always gone, however, in his

professional capacity as a paid entertainer; and no matter how

considerately he had been treated, the fact that he was not present as a

guest had always been obvious. He was in a class with the operatic star

who consents to sing in private and maintains her delicate position of

unstable social equilibrium with sensitive self-consciousness. In his

rise from obscurity, at first, he had been pleased with such

invitations, seeing that they brought him money and an increasing fame.

He was now sought after as a picturesque and personable character.

Women evinced a fearful delight in his presence; they treated him

sometimes as if he were a handsome highwayman, tamed to drawing-room

amenities, sometimes as they treated those mysterious Hindus in robes

and turbans who occasionally appeared to prate of esoteric faiths in the

salons of the Illuminati.

 

Granthope’s sense of humor and his cynical view of life, had, so far,

been sufficient to preserve his equanimity at the threshold of

fashionable society. His equivocal position was tolerable, for he knew

well enough what a sham the whole game was, and how artificial was the

social position which permitted a woman to snub him or patronize him in

public, and did not prevent her following him up in private. He had seen

ladies raise their eyebrows at his appearance in the Western Addition,

who had visited him for a chance to talk to him with astonishing

egotism.

 

There was a strain in him, however, the heritage of some unknown

ancestry, that, since meeting Miss Payson, began to give him more and

more discomfort in the presence of such company. He had risen above the

level of the mere professional entertainer, and had become fastidious.

Clytie had met him upon terms of equality. Her frankness had flattered

him, and her implied promise of friendship was like the opening of a

door which had, hitherto, always been shut to him.

 

Mrs. Maxwell’s bid, therefore, was a distinct advance, and he welcomed

it, not so much because it unlocked for him a new sort of recognition,

as that it furthered the game he had in hand. He could scarce have

defined that game to himself. He was playing neither for position nor

money nor power—his sport was perhaps as purely intellectual as that of

chess, a delight in the pitting of his mind against others.

 

Mrs. Maxwell, with the tact of a woman of sensibility, had made it plain

to him that he was invited for his own sake, upon terms of hospitality.

As a lion, yes, she could not deny that. She confessed that she wished

to tell people that he was coming—but he would not be annoyed by

requests for entertainment. With another, he might have suspected that

this was only a subterfuge to avoid the necessity of paying him his

price, but Mrs. Maxwell’s character was too well known to him for that

possibility to be entertained.

 

He set himself, therefore, to obtain a costume for the affair at the

"House of Increasing Prosperity," known to Americans as the shop of Chew

Hing Lung and Company. With the assistance of the affable and

discerning Li Go Ball, the only Chinese in the quarter who seemed to

know what he required, Granthope selected his outfit, a costume of the

character worn by the more prosperous merchant class of Celestials.

 

Granthope had fitted up the room next beyond his studio for a

bed-chamber and sitting-room, access to it being had through the heavy

velvet arras concealing the door between the two apartments. The place

was severely masculine in its appointments and order, but bespoke the

tasteful employment of considerable money. Here he had his library

also, for since his earliest youth he had been a great reader.

Prominent on its shelves were many volumes of medical books, and, to

offset this sobriety, the lives and memoirs of the famous adventurers of

history—Casanova, Cagliostro, Fenestre, Abbé Faublas, Benvenuto Cellini,

Salvator Rosa, Chevalier d’Eon.

 

A massive Jewish seven-branch candlestick illuminated the place this

evening, splashing with yellow lights the carved gilded frame of a huge

oval mirror, glowing on the belly of a bronze vase, enriching the depths

of color in the dull green walls, smoldering in the warm tones of the

great Persian rug on the floor, twinkling upon the polished surface of

the heavy mahogany table in the center of the room. But it was

concentrated chiefly upon the gorgeous oriental hues where his Chinese

costume was flung, flaming upon the couch. There the colors were

commingled as on an artist’s palette, cold steel blue, pale lemon

yellow, olive green that was nearly old gold, lavender that was almost

pink in the candle-light, a circle of red inside the cap, and flashes of

pale cream-colored bamboo paper here and there.

 

He had already put on the silken undersuit, a costume in itself, with

its straight-falling lines and complementary colors. Fancy Gray was

helping him with the other garments, enjoying it as much as a little

girl dressing a doll, trying on each article herself first and posing in

it before the mirror.

 

First, she wrapped the bottom of his lavender trousers about his ankles,

over white cotton socks, tying them close with the silk bands, carefully

concealing the knot and ends as Go Ball had instructed him. She held

the black boat-shaped satin shoes for him to put on. Next she tied

about his waist the pale yellow sash so that both ends met at the side

and hung together in two striped party-colored ends. Then the short,

padded jacket, and over all this the long, steel-blue, brocaded silk

robe, caught in at the waist with a corded belt. Lastly the olive-green

coat patterned with brocaded mons containing the swastika, and with long

sleeves almost hiding the tips of his fingers. Upon its gold

bullet-shaped buttons she hung the tasseled spectacle-case and his ivory

snuff-box.

 

"Oh, Frank, I forgot!" said Fancy, as she paused with his wig of

horse-hair eked out with braided silk threads, in her hand. "Lucie was

here to-day."

 

Granthope was at the mirror, disguising himself with a long, drooping

mustache and thin goatee. He put down his bottle of liquid gum and

turned to her.

 

"What did she say?"

 

"Why, she said she didn’t have time to wait, and didn’t want to tell me

anything."

 

"Why didn’t she write?"

 

"Said she was afraid to. You’re to manage some way to see her to-night,

if you can, and she has a tip for you."

 

"H’m!" Granthope, with Fancy’s assistance, drew on the wig, and clapped

over his black satin skullcap with its red coral button atop. Then he

paused again reflectively.

 

"It must be something important. If I can only get hold of some good

scandal in this ’four hundred’ crowd I can have some fun with ’em."

 

"I should be afraid to trust these ladies’ maids; they might give you

away any time, and then where’d you be? That would be a pretty good

scandal, itself." Fancy shook her head.

 

"Aren’t they all in love with me?" he said, smiling grimly.

 

Fancy looked dubious. "That’s just the trouble. ’Hell hath no fury like

a woman scorned.’"

 

Granthope now laughed outright. "Fancy, when you get literary you’re

too funny for words."

 

She bridled, stuck out her little pointed tongue at him, and walked into

the front office, where she sat down to attend to some details of her

own work. At last she finished her writing and went to the closet to

put on her hat and jacket.

 

"Oh, Frank!" she called out.

 

"Yes, Fancy!"

 

"You don’t think I’m jealous, do you?"

 

"Yes!" he laughed.

 

She appeared at the doorway and called again:

 

"Mr. Granthope!" He was busy, and did not answer.

 

"Mr. Granthope!"

 

He looked up, now, to see her put her thumb to her nose with a playfully

derisive gesture, such as gamins use.

 

He put his head back and laughed.

 

Then she looked at him seriously, saying, "When I am, you’ll never know

it. I’m not afraid of ladies’ maids. When you really get into your own

class it will be time enough for me to worry. But I wish you wouldn’t

use those girls. They’re all cats, and they’ll scratch!"

 

She was standing before the mirror inside the closet door, with her hat

pin between her lips, adjusting her toque to the masses of her russet

hair, when there came a knock at the hall door. She looked round and

raised her eyebrows, then, after closing the door to the anteroom of the

studio, she called "Come in!"

 

Madam Spoll, in a black silk gown covered with a raglan, entered. She

wore a man’s small, low-crowned, Derby hat trimmed with a yellow bird’s

wing.

 

"How d’you do?" said Fancy, not too cordially.

 

"Good evening," Madam Spoll panted; then, as her breath was spent with

climbing the stairs, she dropped into a chair and gasped heavily. Fancy

went on with her preparations without further attention to her visitor.

 

"Frank in?" was Madam Spoll’s query as soon as she could breathe.

 

"Meaning Mr. Granthope?" said Fancy airily.

 

"You know who I mean well enough!" was her pettish reply.

 

"Oh, _do_ I?"—and Fancy, her costume now in readiness for the street,

walked jauntily into the anteroom and knocked at the door. "Madam Spoll

is here to see you," she called out.

 

"Just a moment," he answered.

 

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.