Meantime he would not go to her house any more—at least not for a long time. There was no good; he was not the man to sit round in parlors looking and acting like a fool. He could only work, blaze the trail, make the clearing, raise the homestead, and when it was ready go and tell her so.
CHAPTER IX
GREEK MEETS GREEK
Early on the evening when the Alstons had seen "The Zingara," Boyé Mayer walked up Kearney Street looking into florists' windows. A cigarette depended from his lip, his opened overcoat disclosed the glossy whiteness of a shield-like shirt bosom, his head was crowned by a shining top hat. He was altogether a noticeable and distinguished figure.
He had been twice to the Albion and was going again this evening, having already engaged the right-hand stage box. Now he was purporting to send Pancha Lopez a third floral tribute and with it reveal his identity. The two previous ones had been anonymous, but tonight her curiosity—roused to a high pitch, or he knew nothing of women—would be satisfied. She would not only know who her unknown admirer was, but she would see him sitting in stately solitude in the right-hand box.
She had been a great surprise. Where he had expected to find an overblown, coarse woman with the strident voice of the music hall and its banal vulgarities, he had seen a girl, young, spontaneous, full of a sparkling charm. He had heard enough singing to know that her voice, fresh and untrained, had promise, and that the spirited dash of her performance indicated no common gifts. Under any circumstances she would have interested him; how much more so now when he knew of her affiliation with a notorious outlaw! She was evidently a potent personality, lawless and daring. The situation appealed to his slyly malign humor, she confidently secure, he completely informed. It was a fitting sequel to the picaresque adventure and he anticipated much entertainment from meeting her, saw himself, with stealthy adroitness, worming his way toward her guilty secrets.
A florist's window, a bower of blossoms under the gush of electric lights, attracted him and he turned into the shop. The proprietor came forward, ingratiatingly polite, his welcoming words revealing white teeth and a foreign accent.
The gentleman wanted a large sheaf bouquet in two colors, red and orange—certainly, and a Gallic wave of the hand indicated a marble slab where flowers were ranged in funnel-shaped green vases. Looking over them, the gentleman lapsed into a French so perfect that the florist suggested Monsieur was of that nation, also his own. Monsieur neither admitted nor denied the charge, occupied over the flowers. He was very particular about them—perhaps the florist would understand better what he wanted when he knew they were for Miss Lopez at the Albion and were designed to match her gypsy dress.
Ah, perfectly—several vases were drawn forward—and over these the two men talked of Miss Lopez and her admirable performance.
"A true artist," the florist thought, "young, and without training as Monsieur can see. A Californian, a girl of the people, risen from nothing. But no doubt Monsieur has already heard her history."