This was the end of the interview. Madam Spoll, at Vixley's instigation, had sent for Granthope and had "put on the screws." Granthope walked back to his rooms in a brown study. He was at bay now, and there seemed to be no escape for him.
The red-headed office boy was whistling and whittling a pencil lazily at Fancy's desk as the palmist entered. There was no one else in the room.
"Has anybody been here, Jim?" Granthope asked.
Jim looked up carelessly and replied, "Dere was a lady what blew in about a half an hour ago and she told me she might float back."
"She wouldn't leave no name, but she was a kissamaroot from Peachville Center all right. She looked like she was just graduated from a French laundry. She left dese gloves here."
He handed over a pair of long, immaculately white gloves, which were lying on a chair. Granthope looked at them carefully, blew one out till it took the form of a hand and then inspected the wrinkles.
"Oh," he said. "Tell Miss Payson to come into my studio when she comes back."
"Say, Mr. Granthope, who's Miss Gray? De lady wanted to know where was Miss Gray, and I told her she could search me, for I wasn't on. She looked like she took me for a shine to be holdin' down de desk here; dat's right."
Granthope walked quickly into his studio without answering.
He seated himself thoughtfully and looked about him, still holding the white glove caressingly in his hand. His eye traveled from the electric-lighted table, round the black velvet arras, to the panel where the signs of the zodiac were embroidered in gold: then his eyes closed. He sat silent for ten minutes or so, then he drew his hand through his heavy black hair and across his brow. His eyes opened; he arose; a faint whimsical smile shone on his face.
Then, still smiling, he strode deliberately across the room, grasped the black velvet hanging and gave it a violent tug, wrenching it from the cornice. It fell in a soft, dark mass upon the floor. He seized the next breadth of drapery, and the next, tearing them from the wall. So he went calmly round the room in his work of destruction, disclosing a widening space of horribly-patterned wall-paper--pink and yellow roses writhing up a violently blue background. On the last side of the room two windows appeared, the glass almost opaque with dust.