"Did you ever see anything so awful?" said Fancy. "And isn't she terribly in love with him though! I know who she is; her name is Fleurette Heller. She came into Granthope's studio once and I took a great liking to her. Frank told her that her love affair would come out all right, and she'd be happier than she ever was in her life before."
"I don't see how she can endure that object," said Cayley.
"Don't you?" said Fancy, "that's because you don't know women. She's in love with him. I understand it perfectly. I wouldn't care a bit how he looked."
She nodded, as she spoke, to a man who passed just then. He was dark-skinned, with a pointed beard. He gave her a quick jerk of the head and grinned, showing a line of yellow teeth, and his glance jumped with the rapidity of machinery from her face to Cayley's, and away again. He walked on, his hands behind his back against a coat so faded and shiny as to glow purple as a plum.
Fancy's eyes followed him. "That's Vixley," she said.
Cayley's look turned from a pretty blonde across the way and he became immediately attentive. "Who's Vixley?"
"Why, Professor Vixley, the slate-writer, you know."
"Oh, yes--he's a medium, is he? What sort is he?"
She shook her head. "Wolf! He makes me sick. I'm afraid of him, too. He's out after Granthope with a knife, and I'm afraid he'll do for him some day. Frank ought never to have stood in with him, but you know he used to live with a friend of this man's when he was little, and they've got a hold on him he can't break very well."
"Yes, in a way. Before he braced up. He's square now, and he's trying to shake that bunch. Poor old Frank!"
Cayley pulled at his mustache. "I wish I had noticed Vixley."
"Oh, I'd like to see him, that's all. He must be a pretty clever fakir. Of course he isn't straight?"
"As a bow-knot," said Fancy, "but if he amuses you, I'll introduce you to him. I've got a pretty good stand-in with him, yet." She smiled sadly.
"Suppose you do. I'd like to hear him talk."
"All right," said Fancy. They rose and walked in the medium's direction, encountering him on the foreward deck. He was holding his hat against the fresh breeze and gazing at the approaching lights of the city. The meeting was somewhat constrained at first. Vixley seemed to be embarrassed at Cayley's aristocratic appearance, and evidently wondered what his motive was in being introduced. Cayley, however, was sufficiently a man of the world to be able to put the medium at his ease. He told stories, he made jokes, and gradually drew Vixley out. The wolf talked gingerly, making sure of his ground, his little black eyes shifting from one to the other, whether he spoke or listened. Cayley held him cleverly until the crowd began to descend, making ready for the disembarkation. They went down to the lower deck. Here the crowd had begun to pack together into a close mass, jostling, joking, singing--all sorts and conditions of men in a common holiday mood.