"Much obliged. H’m! So she thinks she’s a psychic, does she? They might be something in that. Supposed to be engaged to B. Cayley. Well, you’ll have to fix _him_, won’t you! Father writing a book—ah! That’s just what we want. Say, that’s great! Me and Vixley will work that book, don’t you worry! Wears a ring with ’Clytie’ inside. Turquoises. Mole on left cheek. Goes to Mercantile Library three to five. Sun-dial with doll buried under it. That’s funny. I wish it was papers, or something important—I don’t see what we could do with a doll, do you? Still, you never can tell. All’s generally fish that comes to my net. I’ve known stranger things than dolls. Making a birthday present of a hand-bound volume of what? Montaigne? What’s that? Say, what’s this about Madam Grant, anyway?" He turned to her and held out his hand for the card, now distinctly impatient. "I don’t know—that is, I forgot I put that on. There’s nothing there that will help you, I guess. You’d better let me have it back, after all. It’s chiefly about Miss Payson, anyway, and that isn’t your business." Madam Spoll refused to return the card. Instead, she tucked it into the front of her dress, saying, "Oh, I don’t know. You never know what may be useful. It’s well to be prepared." "See here; you understand that you’re to keep your hands off Miss Payson," said Granthope with emphasis. "She’s my game. Do what you like with the old man, but leave me alone, that’s all!" "Don’t you fret yourself about that. Ain’t we worked together before, for gracious sakes? I guess I can mind my own business!" The palmist walked over to the fireplace, stood leaning against the mantel and kicked the fender meditatively, somewhat disturbed by Madam Spoll’s presence. He had seen Miss Payson only twice, yet he had already come to the point where he was annoyed to hear her so cold-bloodedly discussed, and his own heartless notes quoted. Even less could he enjoy thinking of so fine and delicate a creature in the toils of Vixley and Spoll. No, she was for his own plucking. She was a quarry well worth his chase. To share his plans with such vulgar plotters seemed to cheapen the prize, to rub off the bloom of her beauty and charm. He would play a more exquisite, a more subtle game. It would not do, however, to break with the mediums. They were still useful to him, in spite of his assertion of independence. They knew, besides, altogether too much about him for him to dare to kindle their resentment. If Madam Spoll had noticed his detachment she did not show it. She herself had, evidently, been thinking something over, and now she interrupted his meditation. "Say, Frank, about that old Madam Grant, now—" "She wasn’t so old, was she?" "How d’you know she wasn’t?" He covered his mistake as well as he could with: "Oh, I’ve heard she was a young woman, not more than thirty, when she died."