"Oh, you’re too conceited ever to be jealous." "But I am! I’ll prove it. I happen to know that that palmist person, Granthope, was here this afternoon and you spent half an hour with him. How’s that?" "How do you know?" She awoke to a greater interest. "You don’t seem to realize that I make it my business to know all about you. This came by accident, though. I was on the Hyde Street car and I saw him get off and come in here. I waited at the end of the road till he went back. Now, what if I should tell your father that you have been entertaining a faking palmist here, on the sly?" He leaned back and folded his hands. Clytie rose swiftly and walked to the door without a look at him. "Father," she called, "Mr. Cayley has something to say to you." "Never mind," Cayley protested. "That was merely an experiment." Mr. Payson, in overcoat and silk hat, thrust a mildly expectant head in the room. "It was only about the trade dollar business," said Cayley. "I’ll tell you some other time." Mr. Payson withdrew, scenting no mischief, and Clytie sat down without a word. "Thought you’d call my bluff, did you?" said Cayley, unruffled. "I like spirit!" "If you don’t look out you’ll succeed in boring me." Clytie’s manner had shown an amused scorn rather than resentment. She was evidently not afraid of him. "You’re fighting too hard to be bored," he remarked coolly. He added, "Then you are interested in him, are you?" "I am." Clytie looked him frankly in the face. "Why?" he asked. "I’ve heard a lot about him and he appeals to my imagination. I scarcely think I need to apologize for it. Have you any objection to my knowing him?" "I’d rather you wouldn’t get mixed up with him; since he’s been taken up the women are simply crazy about him, as they always are about any charlatan. They’re all running after him and calling on him and ringing him up at all hours. Why, Cly, they actually lie in wait for him at his place; trying to get a chance to talk to him alone. I don’t exactly see you in that class, that’s all. You can scarcely blame me." "Oh, I haven’t rung him up yet," said Clytie, "but there’s no knowing what I may do, of course, with all my unexploded brain-cells." "How did he happen to come here, then?" "He came to see me, I suppose." Cayley accepted the rebuff gracefully. "Well, in another month, when some one else comes along, people will drop him with a thud. He’s a nine days’ wonder now, but he’s too spectacular to last. This is a great old town! We need another new fakir now that the old gentleman in the Miller house has stopped his Occult Brotherhood in the drawing-room and his antique furniture repository in the cellar. I haven’t heard of anything so picturesque since that Orpheum chap caught the turnips on a fork in his teeth, that were tossed from the roof of the Palace Hotel. I suppose I’ll have a good scandal about Granthope, pretty soon, to add to my collection."