The Heart Line 7

The Heart Line 7

"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 she invited her to be seated and the

nonchalant manner in which, after that, she gazed out upon Geary Street.

 

Mrs. Page, however, would be loquacious.

 

"Shall I have to wait long?" she asked. "I have an engagement at eleven

and I simply _must_ see Mr. Granthope first! It’s very important."

 

"I don’t know," said Fancy coolly. "It depends upon whether he has an

interesting sitter or not. Sometimes he’s an hour, and sometimes he’s

only fifteen minutes." She spoke with a slightly stinging emphasis,

examining, meanwhile, the spots on her own finger-nails.

 

"Oh," said Mrs. Page, and it was evident that the remark gave her an

idea as to her own personal powers of attraction. "I thought Mr.

Granthope treated all his patrons alike."

 

"Sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn’t," was Fancy’s cryptic

retort. She watched the effect under drooped lashes.

 

The effect was to make Mrs. Page squirm uneasily, as if she didn’t know

whether she had been hit or not. She took refuge in the remark: "Well, I

hope he will give me a good reading this time."

 

"It all depends on what’s in your hand," Fancy followed her up, smiling

amiably.

 

Mrs. Page minced and simpered: "Do you know, somehow I _hate_ to have

him look at my hand, after what he said before. He told me such

_dreadful_ things, I’m afraid he’ll discover more."

 

"Why do you give him a chance, then?" said Fancy coldly.

 

"Oh, I hope he’ll find something better, this time!"

 

"Weren’t you satisfied with what he gave you?" Fancy asked. "I have

found Mr. Granthope usually strikes it about right."

 

"Oh, of course, I’m satisfied," Mrs. Page admitted. "In fact, I trust

him so implicitly that I have acted on his advice. But it’s rather

dreadful to know the truth, don’t you think?"

 

Fancy nodded her head soberly. "_Sometimes_ it is." She accented the

adverb mischievously.

 

"Oh, I don’t mean what you mean at all!"

 

"I know. You mean it’s dreadful to have other people know the truth?"

 

"No; but I can’t help my character, can I? It’s not _my_ fault if I

_have_ faults. It’s all written in my palm and I can’t alter it. Only,

I mean it’s awful to know exactly what’s going to happen and not be able

to prevent it."

 

"It’s worse not to want to." Fancy waved her hand to some one in the

street.

 

Mrs. Page withdrew from the conversation, routed, and devoted herself to

a study of the Chinese masks, casting an occasional impatient glance

into the anteroom. Fancy polished her rings with her handkerchief.

 

Granthope’s voice was now heard, talking pleasantly with Fleurette, who

was smiling, as he had promised. As she left, flushed and happy,

Granthope greeted Mrs. Page, and escorted her, bubbling with talk, into

the studio. The door closed upon a pervading odor of sandalwood, Mrs.

Page’s legacy to Fancy, who sniffed at it scornfully.

 

Many cable-cars had passed without Fancy’s having recognized any one

worth bowing to, before the next client appeared; but, at that visitor’s

entry, she became a different creature. Her eyes never really left him,

although she seemed, as he waited, to be busy about many things.

 

He was a smart young man, a sort of a bank-clerk person, dressed neatly,

with evidence of considerable premeditation. His hair was parted in the

middle, his face was cleanly shaven. His sparkling, laughing eyes,

devilishly audacious, his pink cheeks and his cool self-assured manner

gave him an appearance of juvenile, immaculate freshness, which rendered

an acquaintance with such a San Francisco girl as Fancy Gray, easy and

agreeable. He laid his hat and stick against his hip jauntily, and

asked:

 

"Could I get a reading from Mr. Granthope without waiting all day for

it?" As he spoke he loosed a frivolous, engaging glance at her.

 

"He’ll be out in just a moment," Fancy replied with more interest than

she had heretofore shown. "Won’t you sit down and wait, please?"

 

He withdrew his eyes long enough to gallop round the room with them, but

they returned to her like horses making for a stable. He took a seat,

pulled up his trousers over his knees, drew down his cuffs, felt the

knot in his tie and smoothed his hair, all with the quick, accurate

motion due to long habit. "Horrible weather," he volunteered

debonairly.

 

"It’s something fierce, isn’t it?" said Fancy, opening and shutting

drawers, searching for nothing. "It gets on my nerves. I wish we’d

have one good warm day for a change."

 

"Been out to the beach lately?" he asked, eying her with undisguised

approval. He breathed on the crown of his derby hat and then smelt of

it.

 

"No," she replied. "I don’t have much time to myself. I hate to go

alone, anyway." Fancy looked aimlessly into the top drawer of her desk.

 

"That’s too bad! But I shouldn’t think you’d ever have to go alone.

You don’t look it."

 

"Really?" Fancy’s tone was arch.

 

"That’s right! I know some one who’d be willing to chase out there with

you at the drop of the hat."

 

Fancy, appearing to feel that the acquaintance was making too rapid

progress, said, "I don’t care much for the beach; it’s too crowded."

 

"That depends upon when you go. I’ve got a car out there where we could

get lost easy enough. Then you can have a quiet little dinner at the

Cliff House almost any night."

 

"Can you? I never tried it."

 

"It’s time you did. Suppose you try it with me?"

 

Fancy opened her eyes very wide at him and let him have the full benefit

of her stare. "Isn’t this rather sudden? You’re rushing it a little

too fast, seems to me."

 

"Not for me. I’m sorry you can’t keep up. You don’t look slow."

 

Fancy turned to her engagement book.

 

"You must have known some pretty easy ones," she said sarcastically.

 

The snub did not silence him for long. He recrossed his legs, drummed

on the brim of his hat, and began:"Say, did you ever go to Carminetti’s?"