Volume X Part 10 (1/2)
”I can tell fortunes. I'm extremely good at it,” he boasted. ”I'll tell you yours.”
”Oh, very well,” she a.s.sented, sitting down again: and guilelessly she pulled off her glove.
He took her hand, a beautifully slender, nervous hand, warm and soft, with rosy, tapering fingers.
”Oho! you _are_ an old maid after all,” he cried. ”There's no wedding ring.”
”You villain!” she gasped, s.n.a.t.c.hing the hand away.
”I promised to tell your fortune. Haven't I told it correctly?”
”You needn't rub it in, though. Eccentric old maids don't like to be reminded of their condition.”
”Will you marry _me_?”
”Why do you ask?”
”Partly for curiosity. Partly because it's the only way I can think of, to make sure of seeing you again. And then, I like your hair. Will you?”
”I can't,” she said.
”Why not?”
”The stars forbid. And I'm ambitious. In my horoscope it is written that I shall either never marry at all, or--marry royalty.”
”Oh, bother ambition! Cheat your horoscope. Marry me. Will you?”
”If you care to follow me,” she said, rising again, ”you can come and help me to commit a little theft.”
He followed her to an obscure and sheltered corner of a flowery path, where she stopped before a bush of white lilac.
”There are no keepers in sight, are there? she questioned.
”I don't see any,” he said.
”Then allow me to make you a receiver of stolen goods,” said she, breaking off a spray, and handing it to him.
”Thank you. But I'd rather have an answer to my question.”
”Isn't that an answer?”
”Is it?”
”White lilac--to the Invisible Prince?”
”The Invisible Prince--Then you _are the black_ domino!” he exclaimed.
”Oh, I suppose so,” she consented.
”And you _will_ marry me?”
”I'll tell the aunt I live with to ask you to dinner.”