Part 12 (1/2)
”No, Monsieur, I am not afraid. Oh, yes; she may read my palm, it is all a jest, of course.”
The Egyptian held the man's hand at which she had not yet glanced. She took the hand of the Marquise.
”Pardon, Madame, it is no jest, it is a science,” she said briefly, and holding their hands, glanced from one to the other.
”Firm hands, strong hands, both,” she said, and then bent over that of the Marquise; as she did so the expression of casual interest faded from her face; she slowly lifted her head and met the gaze of the owner.
”Well, well? Am I to commit murders?” she asked; but her smile was an uneasy one; the gaze of the Egyptian made her shrink.
”Not with your own hand,” said the woman, slowly studying the well-marked palm; ”but you will live for awhile surrounded by death and danger. You will hate, and suffer for the hate you feel. You will love, and die for the love you will not take--you--”
But the Marquise drew her hand away petulantly.
”Oh! I am to die of love, then?--I!” and her light laugh was disdainful. ”That is quite enough of the fates for one evening;” she regarded the pink palm doubtfully. ”See, Monsieur, it does not look so terrible; yet it contains all those horrors.”
”Naturally it would not contain them,” said the Egyptian. ”You will force yourself to meet what you call the horrors. You will sacrifice yourself. You will meet the worst as the women of '93 ascended the guillotine--laughing.”
”Ah, what pictures! Monsieur, I wish you a better fortune.”
”Than to die of love?” he asked, and met her eyes; ”that were easier than to live without it.”
”Chut!--you speak like the cavalier of a romance.”
”I feel like one,” he confessed, ”and it rests on your mercy whether the romance has a happy ending.”
She flashed one admonis.h.i.+ng glance at him and towards the woman who bent over his hand.
”Oh, she does not comprehend the English,” he a.s.sured her; ”and if she does she will only hear the echo of what she reads in my hand.”
”Proceed,” said the Marquise to the Egyptian, ”we wait to hear the list of Monsieur's romances.”
”You will live by the sword, but not die by the sword,” said the woman. ”You will have one great pa.s.sion in your life. Twice the woman will come in your path. The first time you will cross the seas to her, the second time she comes to you--and--ah!--”
She reached again for the hand of the Marquise and compared them. The two young people looked, not at her, but at each other.
In the eyes of the Marquise was a certain petulant rebellion, and in his the appealing, the a.s.suring, the ardent gaze that met and answered her.
”It is peculiar--this,” continued the woman. ”I have never seen anything like it before; the same mark, the same, Mademoiselle, Monsieur; you will each know tragedies in your experience, and the lives are linked together.”
”No!”--and again the Marquise drew her hand away. ”It is no longer amusing,” she remarked in English, ”when those people think it their duty to pair couples off like animals in the ark.”
Her face had flushed, though she tried to look indifferent. The Egyptian had stepped back and was regarding her curiously.
”Do not cross the seas, Mademoiselle; all of content will be left behind you.”
”Wait,” and the Monsieur Incognito put out his hand. ”You call the lady 'Mademoiselle,' but your guess has not been good;” and he pointed to a plain ring on the hand of the Marquise.
”I call her Mademoiselle because she never has been a wife, and--she never will be a wife. There are marriages without wedding rings, and there are wedding rings without marriages; pardon!--” and pa.s.sing between the ferns and palms she was gone.
”That is true!” half whispered the Marquise, looking up at him; ”her words almost frighten me.”
”They need not,” and the caress in his eyes made her drop her own; ”all your world of Paris knows the romance of your marriage. You are more of a celebrity than you may imagine; my knowledge of that made me fear to approach you here.”