Part 8 (2/2)
”Charlatans profess to do so? Oh, yes; scores of them. I can understand a nimble-witted, half-a-guinea--or a guinea if she can get it--Regent Street sibyl professing so. That is fraud; absolute downright fraud. But I believe that much of a man's or woman's temperament, disposition, call it what you will, can be plainly read from the lines of the hand.”
”Read mine.”
She spoke impulsively. Persuasively too, the while she pulled off her glove. Palmistry, if it does not truly predict fate, is ofttimes responsible for much of its direction.
To hold her warm little hand in his--she had kept it close within the recesses of her m.u.f.f--was much too good an opportunity to let slip. He bent over; spent quite a time on the study of the lines on her palm. He had only the light of the moon to work by; perhaps that accounted for the time expenditure; or perhaps he--well, anyway, he was holding her hand all the while.
During the task--it was a silent one--he was tempted, sore, to put his lips in the warm centre of what he held. Possibly she divined that; gathered it perhaps from the trembling of his fingers as they grasped her own. Stiffening a little, she queried:
”Well?”
Her voice was as the application of a brake; pulled him up. Tightening his hold on himself he loosened his tongue.
”Temperament first,” he answered.
”Pa.s.sionate--wilful--affectionate--hasty----”
The reading was wound up at that point. The cataloguer paused, as it were, in the middle of his list. In astonishment she asked:
”Why do you stop? Is that all you can read?”
”No--no. But my belief--my faith--is shaken!”
Just a faint tremor in the voice--it was not unnoticed by him--as she asked:
”Faith? In what?”
He fenced. Did not like to shape words around what he thought he read.
The truth is not always pleasant. So it was that he answered:
”Palmistry as a science.”
The woman's voice was steadied again. There was a ring of merriment in it, ridiculing his seriousness, as she said--
”Why this shaken faith? Because of what you read in my hand?”
”M'yes.”
”Tell me----”
”No. What I have read--the indications--I know to be wrong. This is a rude shock to my credence! I shall never again believe in palmistry's infallibility!”
”Tell me?”
She spoke impatiently; her curiosity was well aroused. Scrutinizing her hand with interest; wholly disbelieving him, she said imperatively:
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