To their cocktails and California claret they now added a Benedictine, and Gay grew still more confidential. The night fell, and the crowd began to leave. They walked entirely round the hotel corridor, bought an abalone shell split into layers of opalescent hues, then with a last look at the sea-lions, barking in the surge, they walked for the train, found a place in an open car and sat down, wedged into a hilarious crowd, reveling in song and peanuts.
Disregarded was the superb view they passed. The train, skirting the precipitous cliffs along the Golden Gate, commanded a splendor of darkling water and tumultuous mountain distances, theatrical in beauty. The sea splashed at the foot of the precipice beneath them. The hills rose above their heads, the intermittent twinkle of lighthouses punctuated the purple gloom. It was all lost upon them. Fancy's head drooped to Gay's shoulder. He put his arm about her, cocking his hat to one side that it might not strike hers as he leaned nearer. No one observed them, no one cared, for every Jack had his Jill, and a simple, primitive comradeship had settled upon the wearied throng. A baby whined occasionally as the train lurched round the sharp curves of the track. A riotous yell or two came from the misogynists of the smoking compartment. Fancy did not talk. Gay's loquacity oozed away. He was content to feel her breathing against his side.
There were telephone conversations often after that, then occasional lunches down-town, when Fancy, always modishly dressed, drew many an eye to her well-rounded, well-filled Eton jacket, her smart red hat, her fresh white gloves and her high-heeled shoes. Gay was proud of her, and he showed her off to his friends without caution. Fancy was nothing loath. Occasionally they went to the theater, dining previously in style at some popular restaurant, where Gay hoped that he might be seen with her. To such as discovered them, he would bow with proud proprietorship; or perhaps saunter over, on some flimsy pretext, to hear his friends say, with winks and smiles:
"By Jove, that girl's all right, old man! She's a stunner. Say, introduce me, will you?"
To which Gay would answer:
"Not on your folding bed! This is a close corporation, old man. I've got that claim staked out, see? So long!" and walk away pleased.
At the theater, he always made a point of going out between the acts, in order that his reëntry might point more conspicuously at his conquest. Afterward, at Zinkand's, having engaged a table beside which all the world must pass, he would pose, apparently oblivious to the crowd, talking to her with absorbed interest.
Fancy suffered the exhibition without displeasure. She had no objection to being looked at. To make a picture of herself, to play the arch and coquettish before a room of well-dressed folk was one of the things she did best.
She was recognized occasionally and pointed out by one or another of Granthope's patrons. "There she is; over behind you, in the white lace hat, with a chatelaine watch—don't look just yet, though," was the almost audible formula which Gay P. Summer learned to wait for. At such times his chest swelled with pride. To walk into a restaurant with her late at night and leave a wake of excited whispers behind him, was all he knew of fame.
It did not escape Gay's notice, however, that Fancy's eyes were not always for him. In the middle of his longest and most elaborate story, she would often throw a surreptitious glance about the room, letting it rest for an instant—a butterfly's caress—upon some admiring stalwart stranger. Once or twice he detected the flicker of Fancy's smile, a smile not meant for him. He found that, although his attention was all for Fancy, Fancy's errant glances allowed nothing and nobody to escape her observation. If he mentioned any one whom he had seen in the room, Fancy had seen him, or more often her, first. Fancy always knew what she wore, what it cost, what she was doing, how much she liked him and what her little game was.