The Heart Line 70

The Heart Line 70

Cayley smiled and smoothed his pointed beard. "Oh, yes. I’ve heard

considerable about it. Nobody seems to understand it but me. Very

clever of him, I think."

 

"What d’you mean?" Clytie was instantly upon the defense.

 

"I like his system. It’s subtle."

 

"His system?"

 

"Yes. You don’t mean to say you still think he’s sincere, do you?"

 

"I don’t think it’s necessary to discuss Mr. Granthope," said Clytie

carelessly. "Of course I do believe he’s sincere, or I wouldn’t call

myself a friend of his. He has given up a good paying business because

he was sick of that way of earning a living."

 

"And also in order to make more money by quitting."

 

"How?"

 

"By marrying you."

 

She winced. "Blanchard," she said, "if you weren’t an old friend, I

couldn’t forgive you that. But because you are, I can’t permit you to

think it."

 

"It was because we are old friends that I permitted myself to speak so

plainly. You’ll count it, I suppose, merely as jealousy. But I hate to

see you taken in so easily."

 

Clytie looked up at him calmly, folding her hands in her lap. "Now,

Blanchard, please tell me exactly what you mean, without any more

insinuations."

 

"Why, Granthope has been for two months trying to marry you. He’s after

your money."

 

"Thank you for the implied compliment," she retorted dryly.

 

"Oh, well, you know perfectly well what _I_ think of you, Cly. I was

thinking of what I know of him, not what I know of you. He’s made a

deliberate attempt to get you, and this reform business is only a part

of the game."

 

She smiled and turned away, as if she were so sure of Granthope that it

was hardly worth her while even to defend him.

 

"It’s not pleasant to say it," he went on; "but you spoke of being

distrustful of these mediums your father knows, and my point is that

Granthope’s tarred with the same brush. He has worked with them and

plotted with them."

 

She was as yet unruffled; the spell of her happiness was still upon her,

and she answered mildly. "I can hardly blame you for thinking that,

perhaps. I suppose I might myself, if I didn’t know him so well. But I

do happen to know something about his life, and I’m sure you’re

mistaken. He’s told me a good deal, and I have my own intuitions

besides."

 

Cayley was as serene. "Do your intuitions tell you, for instance, that

he has a definite understanding with these mediums—in regard to you?"

 

"No, they do not!" she answered calmly, looking him fair in the face.

 

"It’s true, nevertheless." Cayley, with sharp eyes, noted her flush.

Her eyes were well schooled, but her quivering mouth betrayed her

trouble.

 

She took up her book as if to dismiss the subject.

 

Cayley watched her with impassive eyes. "You may be his friend, as you

say, but there are a lot of things about Granthope that you don’t know

yet."

 

"No doubt," she replied without looking up.

 

"And there are things which you ought to know."

 

She looked at him now, to say: "Do you fancy that you are helping your

own chances any by attacking him?"

 

"Will it help his chances any if you find that he has given away

particular facts that he’s discovered about you and your father?"

 

She had begun to be aroused, now, and she showed fight. "I don’t

believe it!"

 

Still unperturbed, he went on in his mechanically precise way. "I’ve

made it my business to find out about Granthope, Cly. It shouldn’t

surprise you—you know I’m in earnest about wanting you. I’m as earnest,

too, in wanting to protect you. I don’t propose to hold my tongue when

I find that you’re trusting in a man that’s knifing you behind your

back."

 

Her voice rang with pride and scorn as she rose, saying, "I don’t care

to discuss the matter further, Blanchard."

 

"Not when I say that I have seen notes in Granthope’s own handwriting

that were given to a medium as a part of a deliberate scheme? These

notes were on definite things he had learned, I’m sure, from his

conversations with you. Some of them are personal matters that I’m sure

you wouldn’t at all care to have made public. You could easily prove it

if you saw them."

 

She had lost courage again, and hesitated, staring at him.

 

Then she said, freezing, "Let me see them, then. If you’re determined

to have a scene, you may as well follow the rules of melodrama."

 

"I can’t show them, because this medium wouldn’t let them out of his

possession. But I can get him to let you see them, if you like."

 

"You say they are about things we—that I talked about?"

 

"Yes."

 

"Things—about—_me_?"

 

"Yes. I forget all of them. I had only a moment’s glance."

 

For some moments she stood silent. Then she spoke swiftly. "I don’t

believe it. He couldn’t do such a thing!"

 

"My dear Cly, you must remember that one’s whole mental evolution is

merely the history of the conflict between reason and instinct, and

reason is bound to win in the end. That’s the way we develop. The fact

is, he _could_ do it and _did_ do it. He’s a charlatan and he has used

a charlatan’s methods. I said he was clever. This giving up his studio

was merely a kind of gambit. But he made a mistake when he tried to use

a lot of cheap fakirs to help him out with you."

 

"Oh!" She clenched her fists. "Don’t! I won’t stand it!" Her head

dropped as if she were weary. Her eyes burned.

 

"Oh, there’s good in everybody, the copy-books say," he returned. "But

the fact is, Cly, he isn’t in your class, and never was. You should

have seen that!"

 

She looked at him without seeing him, her eyes caught meaninglessly by

the garnet in his tie, clinging to it, as if it were the only real thing

in the world. Her lips parted, the color was leaving her cheeks, she

looked as frail as a ghost. Suddenly she threw off her reverie, and

placing her hand on his arm, said, "Let me see them—the notes—Blanchard.

There must be some horrid mistake. I want to clear it up immediately."

 

"Very well, I’ll take you now, if you like. It isn’t far."

 

She followed him out of the library as if hypnotized. They spoke little

on the way. Cayley tried his best to arouse her, but finally gave it up

as impossible. He watched her, preserving his usual phlegmatic calm.

She walked with head erect, her chin forward, with her long, graceful

gait, beside him, but never seemed two human beings further apart in

spirit.

 

Flora Flint opened the door to Vixley’s flat. She acted quite as if she

belonged there and invited them in cordially, with an up-and-down

scrutiny of Clytie as they passed in. Then she disappeared down the

long, tunnel-like hall. Cayley took Clytie into the office where,

refusing a chair, she stood like a statue, her eyes fixed on the door.

 

Vixley entered, currying his beard with his long fingers. "Well, Mr.

Cayley," he said, "what can we do for you? Like a sitting?"

 

"Professor, you recall telling me something about some memoranda

Granthope gave you, don’t you?"

 

"I been thinkin’ about that, Mr. Cayley, and I don’t know as I ought to

have said anything. I’m rather inclined to regret it."

 

"You _have_ said something, and I’ve brought this lady down to show the

memoranda to her," said Cayley.

 

"H’m!" Vixley looked her over. "It ain’t exactly customary to show

things like that, you know."

 

"We’ve had all that out before. I’m here to see those cards."

 

Vixley drew up a rocking-chair for Clytie, and seated himself on the

edge of the revolving chair in front of his desk, putting the tips of

his long fingers together. "Francis Granthope is a bright young man,"

he said, "a very bright young man. Very painstaking, and very thorough.

I won’t say he ain’t a _leetle_ bit unscrupulous, however. A man who

ain’t got no psychic influence behind him has got to do some pretty good

guessin’. Now you go to work and take me, with my control, Theodore

Parker, and his band o’ spirits, I don’t need to bother much. I can get

all I want out of the other plane. I ain’t sayin’ nothin’ against

Granthope, except maybe that he uses methods, sometimes, that ain’t

_exactly_ legitimate, such as what I was tellin’ you about."

 

"How did he happen to give you these notes?" Clytie asked.

 

"Why, I s’pose he expected me to give him an equivalent in return. I

will say I have helped him out, at times, feelin’ rather predisposed

toward him, and him bein’ a likely chap. But Lord, _I_ don’t need his

help! And so I told him. In this case I didn’t feel called upon to

give away none of my client’s affairs. Naturally he got a little huffy

about it, and he’s acted so that I’m inclined to resent it. I can’t bear anything like ingratitude."