She looked up into his eyes frankly. "I promise, Frank. When I need you, I’ll come." She was a blither spirit after that, till he took his leave. It had been an eventful day for Francis Granthope. He had swung round almost the whole circle of emotions. But not quite. *CHAPTER XI* *THE FIRST TURNING TO THE LEFT* At five o’clock the next afternoon Blanchard Cayley sitting at a window of his club, opening the letters which he had just taken from his box in the office. He had his hat on, a trait which always aroused the ire of the older members. Beside him, upon a small table, was a glass of "orange squeeze," which he sipped at intervals. At this hour there were some twenty members in the large room reading, talking or playing dominoes. Others came in and went out occasionally, and of these more than half approached Cayley to say effusively: "Hello, old man, how goes it?" or some such similarly luminous remark. This was as offensive to Cayley as the wearing of his hat in the club was to the old men. Nothing annoyed him so much as to be interrupted while reading his letters. Yet he always looked up with a smile, and replied: "Oh, so-so—what’s the news?" To be sure, Cayley’s mail to-day was not so important that these hindrances much mattered. The study of Esperanto was his latest fad. With several Misses, Frauleins and Mademoiselles on the official list of the "Esperantistoj," and whom he suspected of being young and beautiful, he had begun a systematic correspondence. The greater part of the answers he received were dull and innocuous, written on picture post-cards. From Odessa, from Siberia, Rio de Janeiro, Cambodia, Moldavia and New Zealand such missives came. Those which were merely perfunctory, or showed but a desire to obtain a San Francisco post-card for a growing collection, he threw into the waste-basket. Others, whose originality promised a flirtation more affording, he answered ingeniously. A man suddenly slapped him on the shoulder. "Hello, Blanchard, have a game of dominoes?" "No, thanks." "Come and have a drink, then." "No, thanks, I’m on the wagon now." "Go to the devil." "Same to you." The man grinned and dropped into a big chair opposite Cayley and lighted a cigar. Then his glance wandered out of the window. Cayley put the bunch of letters in his pocket and yawned. "By Jove, there’s a peach over there," said the man. Cayley turned and looked. "In front of the shoe store. See?" She was standing, looking idly into the show window—a figure in gray and red. Scarlet cuffs, scarlet collar, scarlet silk gloves. Her form was trim and her carriage jaunty. It was Fancy Gray—drifting. She stood, hesitating, and shot a glance up to the second story of the club house where the men sat. She caught Cayley’s eye and smiled, showing her white teeth. Her eyebrows went up. Then she turned down the street and walked slowly away.