SIDE LIGHTS
"Mrs. Chenoweth Maxwell would be very glad to see Mr. Francis Granthope next Friday evening at nine o'clock for an informal Chinese costume supper. Kindly arrive masked."
This invitation marked a climacteric in Granthope's social career. It was supplemented by an explanation over the telephone that left no doubt in the mind of the palmist as to the genuineness and friendliness of its cordiality. He had appeared already at several assemblies of the smarter set and had, by this time, a considerable acquaintance with the fashionable side of town. Of the information thus acquired he had made good use in his business. He had always gone, however, in his professional capacity as a paid entertainer; and no matter how considerately he had been treated, the fact that he was not present as a guest had always been obvious. He was in a class with the operatic star who consents to sing in private and maintains her delicate position of unstable social equilibrium with sensitive self-consciousness. In his rise from obscurity, at first, he had been pleased with such invitations, seeing that they brought him money and an increasing fame. He was now sought after as a picturesque and personable character. Women evinced a fearful delight in his presence; they treated him sometimes as if he were a handsome highwayman, tamed to drawing-room amenities, sometimes as they treated those mysterious Hindus in robes and turbans who occasionally appeared to prate of esoteric faiths in the salons of the Illuminati.
Granthope's sense of humor and his cynical view of life, had, so far, been sufficient to preserve his equanimity at the threshold of fashionable society. His equivocal position was tolerable, for he knew well enough what a sham the whole game was, and how artificial was the social position which permitted a woman to snub him or patronize him in public, and did not prevent her following him up in private. He had seen ladies raise their eyebrows at his appearance in the Western Addition, who had visited him for a chance to talk to him with astonishing egotism.
There was a strain in him, however, the heritage of some unknown ancestry, that, since meeting Miss Payson, began to give him more and more discomfort in the presence of such company. He had risen above the level of the mere professional entertainer, and had become fastidious. Clytie had met him upon terms of equality. Her frankness had flattered him, and her implied promise of friendship was like the opening of a door which had, hitherto, always been shut to him.
Mrs. Maxwell's bid, therefore, was a distinct advance, and he welcomed it, not so much because it unlocked for him a new sort of recognition, as that it furthered the game he had in hand. He could scarce have defined that game to himself. He was playing neither for position nor money nor power—his sport was perhaps as purely intellectual as that of chess, a delight in the pitting of his mind against others.
Mrs. Maxwell, with the tact of a woman of sensibility, had made it plain to him that he was invited for his own sake, upon terms of hospitality. As a lion, yes, she could not deny that. She confessed that she wished to tell people that he was coming—but he would not be annoyed by requests for entertainment. With another, he might have suspected that this was only a subterfuge to avoid the necessity of paying him his price, but Mrs. Maxwell's character was too well known to him for that possibility to be entertained.
He set himself, therefore, to obtain a costume for the affair at the "House of Increasing Prosperity," known to Americans as the shop of Chew Hing Lung and Company. With the assistance of the affable and discerning Li Go Ball, the only Chinese in the quarter who seemed to know what he required, Granthope selected his outfit, a costume of the character worn by the more prosperous merchant class of Celestials.
Granthope had fitted up the room next beyond his studio for a bed-chamber and sitting-room, access to it being had through the heavy velvet arras concealing the door between the two apartments. The place was severely masculine in its appointments and order, but bespoke the tasteful employment of considerable money. Here he had his library also, for since his earliest youth he had been a great reader. Prominent on its shelves were many volumes of medical books, and, to offset this sobriety, the lives and memoirs of the famous adventurers of history—Casanova, Cagliostro, Fenestre, Abbé Faublas, Benvenuto Cellini, Salvator Rosa, Chevalier d'Eon.
A massive Jewish seven-branch candlestick illuminated the place this evening, splashing with yellow lights the carved gilded frame of a huge oval mirror, glowing on the belly of a bronze vase, enriching the depths of color in the dull green walls, smoldering in the warm tones of the great Persian rug on the floor, twinkling upon the polished surface of the heavy mahogany table in the center of the room. But it was concentrated chiefly upon the gorgeous oriental hues where his Chinese costume was flung, flaming upon the couch. There the colors were commingled as on an artist's palette, cold steel blue, pale lemon yellow, olive green that was nearly old gold, lavender that was almost pink in the candle-light, a circle of red inside the cap, and flashes of pale cream-colored bamboo paper here and there.