The Heart Line 49

The Heart Line 49

Fernigan seized a small Turkish rug from the floor and hung it in front

of him, like a chasuble. Standing before the company he intoned a

sacrilegious parody, like everything he did, funny, like everything he

did, atrocious:

 

"_O, sanctissimus nabisco in colorado maduro domino te deum, e pluribus

unum vice versa et circus hippocriticam, mephisto apollinaris nux vomica

dolores intimidad mores; O rara avis per diem cum magnum vino et sappho

modus vivendi felicitas,_" to the droned "_A—men_."

 

Keith then enlivened the company with what quaint parlor tricks he knew,

or dared, from making of a napkin a ballet dancer pirouetting upon one

toe, to limericks that were suppressed by Sully Maxwell, Mrs. Page

laughed prodigiously, showing all her teeth, staring with her great

eyes, vivid in her every __EXPRESSION__, flamboyant, sleek and glossy,

abounding in temperament. Frankie Dean smiled maliciously and plied the

performers with her acrid wit. The girl from Santa Rosa listened, her

cheeks burning.

 

At six they went outside for fresh air and promenaded the glazed veranda

until the sun rose. In front of them was the broad Pacific, stretching

out to the Farralones, even to Japan. To the north, across the bar,

yellowed with alluvium from the San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers, a

mountainous coast stretched to far, misty Bolinas. Southward ran the

broad, wide beach exposed by the ebb tide. It was damp and cool; the

last spasm of summer had given way to the brisk, stimulating weather

that was San Francisco’s usual habit. Granthope buttoned his light

overcoat tightly over his rumpled evening dress and walked with the girl

from Santa Rosa, enjoying the scene quietly, speaking in monosyllables.

The others had a new burst of effervescence, still more desperate than

ever; their hilarity was indefatigable. Keith walked along the tops of

the tables, leading Mrs. Page. Frankie Dean and Fernigan two-stepped

the length and breadth of the wide platform, joking incessantly.

 

A walk up the beach was then suggested, and, after a preliminary

furbishing of faces and hair, they went down the steep rocky road to the

wide strand, and proceeded along the shore.

 

Granthope, falling behind, saw that the girl from Santa Rosa alone had

waited for him. She gazed at him steadily with grave eyes.

 

"Well," he said kindly, "what d’you think of San Francisco?"

 

She looked down at the sand and drew a circle with her toe before she

answered.

 

"It’s pretty gay here, isn’t it?"

 

"Oh, well, if you call this sort of thing gay!"

 

The girl looked immensely relieved, gave him a quick, searching glance,

and said shyly: "Do you know, Mr. Granthope, I have an idea that you

didn’t enjoy it any more than I did!"

 

He smiled at her, then silently grasped her hand. She blushed and turned

away.

 

"I thought it was going to be great fun," she said, as they walked on.

"I never was up all night before. It’s awfully exciting. But people do

look awful in the morning, don’t they?"

 

She herself was like a blossom wet with dew, but Granthope knew what she

meant, well enough. He had watched the lines come into Mrs. Page’s face

and her mouth droop at the corners; he had noticed the glitter fade from

Frankie Dean’s black eyes, and her lids grow heavy.

 

"You ought never to have come," he said. "I think you’d better go home

and get to bed. Suppose we leave them and walk across to the almshouse

and take the Haight Street cars?"

 

"Oh, d’you think they’d mind, if we did?"

 

"They’d never notice that we were gone, I’m sure."

 

"I’m afraid you’ll find me awfully stupid. Miss Dean is very witty,

isn’t she?"

 

"I’d rather be stupid."

 

"You’re sure I won’t bore you?"

 

"I don’t feel much like talking, myself. I have plenty to think about.

Suppose we don’t say anything, unless we have something to say."

 

"Oh, I didn’t know you could do that—in San Francisco!"

 

He laughed sincerely for the first time that night.

 

As they came to the place where the beach road turned off for Ingleside,

the rest of the party was some distance ahead. They were sitting upon

some rocks, and, as Granthope looked, he saw Mrs. Page rise, lift her

skirts and walk barefooted across the sands, down to the water’s edge.

She turned and waved her hand to him. He took off his hat to her and

pointed inland in reply. Then he climbed the low sand-hills with his

companion and struck off southward, along the road. The girl had colored

again.

 

Her confidence in him was soothing. She was so serious and innocent, so

quick with a country girl’s delicate observation of nature, that he fell

into a more placid state of mind. She became more friendly all the

while, till, despite her confession of shyness, she fairly prattled. He

let her run on, scarcely listening, busy with his own thoughts. And so,

up the long road to the almshouse, resting in the pale sunshine

occasionally, through the Park to the end of the Haight Street

cable-line they walked, and talked ingenuously.

 

She lived in "The Mission," and there, having nothing better to do, he

escorted her, and at last, in that jumble of wooden buildings so

multitudinously prosaic, between the Twin Peaks and the Old Mission, he

left her. She bade him good-by apparently with regret. Widely

different as they were in mind and temperament, they had, for their

hour, come closely together. Now they were to recede, never again,

perhaps, to meet.

 

He walked in town along Valencia Street, through that curious "hot belt"

which defies the town’s normal state of weather, turned up Van Ness

Avenue, still too busy with his reflections to shut himself up in his

studio. It was Sunday morning—he had almost forgotten the day—and he

turned up his collar, to conceal what he could of his evening attire and

its wilted, rumpled linen, somewhat uncomfortable in the presence of the

church-going throngs which pervaded the avenue.

 

He had reached the top of the long slope leading to the Black Point

military reservation, and was pausing upon the corner of Lombard Street,

when, looking up the hill, he saw Clytie Payson coming down the steep,

irregular pathway that did service for a sidewalk. He stepped behind a

lamp-post and watched her, uncertain whether or not to let her see him.

 

She came tripping down, picking her way along the cleated double plank,

too intent upon her footsteps to look far ahead. The sight of her made

him a little trepid with excitement; it focused his dissatisfaction with

himself. He knew, now, what had disturbed him. It was the thought of

her. She had forced him to look at himself from a new point of view,

with a new, critical vision. He longed for her approval. Her gentle

coercion was drawing him into new channels of life, and he felt a sudden

need for her help. He was losing his whilom comrades, his old familiar

associations repelled him. He had nothing to sustain him now, but the

thought of her friendship.

 

But, in his present state, he had not the courage to address her. As a

child plays with circumstances and makes his own omens, he left the

decision to chance. If she turned and saw him, he would greet her and

throw himself on her grace. If not, he would pass on without speaking,

much as he longed to speak.

 

She came down to the corner diagonally opposite and paused for a moment,

looking off at the mountains and the waters of the Golden Gate. He saw

her make a sudden movement, as if waking from her abstraction, then she

walked over in his direction. He came out from his cover and went to

meet her.

 

"Good morning, Mr. Granthope!" She was smiling, holding out her hand.

"I thought I recognized you! Something told me to stop a moment, and

wait. Then suddenly I saw you. You see, you can’t escape me!"

 

He was visibly embarrassed, conscious of his significantly unkempt

appearance. She, however, did not show that she noticed it.

 

"How is your ankle?" was her first inquiry. He assured her that it had

given him no trouble for a week, and he expressed his thanks to her for

her help.

 

"I’ve been hoping I might see you," she said, "to apologize for the

reception you received the last time you called. I can’t tell you how

unhappy it made me, nor how I regret it."

 

"Mayn’t I see you a while now?" He felt at such a disadvantage in his

present condition that it was embarrassing to be with her, and yet he

longed for another hour of companionship.

 

"Let’s walk down to the Point," she said. "I can get in the

reservation, and it will be beautiful."

 

As they walked down across the empty space at the foot of the avenue and

along the board-walk over the sand, she talked inconsequently of the day

and the scene, evidently attempting to put him at his ease. The little

girl from Santa Rosa had given him a passive comfort. Clytie’s

companionship was an active and inspiring joy. His depression ceased; a

sane, wholesome content filled him. He watched her graceful,

leopard-like swing and the evidences of vitality that impelled her

movements.

 

They passed the sentry who nodded to her at the gate, went past the

officers’ quarters, down a little path lined with piled cannon-balls,

out to a small promontory that overlooked the harbor. Here there was an

old Spanish brass cannon in its wooden mortar-carriage, and a seat on

the very edge of the bluff. The harbor extended wide to the southeast.

Inshore was a covey of white-sailed yachts in regatta, just tacking, to

beat across to Lime Point, opposite.

 

As they sat down, Clytie said, "Now do tell me about Miss Gray. How is

she?"

 

"She’s not with me any more."

 

She lifted her brows. "Where is she?"

 

"I don’t know, quite."

"You haven’t seen her since she left?"