"Oh, do stay, gentlemen. I'd so like you to meet my husband," I said, rolling the word around in my mouth with suppressed triumph. Sylvie ran to take Florent's cloak, and I noticed she had the oddest expression on her face. Mustapha was behind him. Florent's dark, intelligent eyes took in the entire scene in a moment. A strange smile crossed his face.

"My, what an honor," he said mildly. "Lawyers. Could they be relatives? I think not. There is no family resemblance. If they claim to be of the family, they must be illegitimate." He paused to enjoy the effect. etienne's face turned most satisfactorily red.

"You lying b.a.s.t.a.r.d-" etienne exclaimed. Mustapha's hand went un.o.btrusively to the sash at his waist, but I stopped him with a glance.

"My dear husband," I addressed Florent, "my brother has been so kind as to bring a witness with him. Sweetheart, what would you say to owning a distinguished residence in the Cite? My inheritance, now that my brother has so kindly confirmed my ident.i.ty."

"The Hotel Pasquier? But isn't it a little dreary, my love?" answered Florent, fully in the spirit of the thing.

"Never mind, precious. We could redecorate it with the money from the sale of the lovely little country property my grandmother left to me. I do hope you have looked after it well for me, Brother."

"You b.i.t.c.h!" etienne exclaimed. I looked at Florent, and he looked at me. The thought flashed through both our minds. Check and mate in two moves.

''Maitre Pasquier, is this true?" asked etienne's companion.

"Never...I..."

"etienne," I broke in, "you cannot have it both ways: either I am your sister, and you conspired to rob me of my inheritance, or I am not your sister, and you are attempting to rob me now of my property. Do, please, decide in front of this obviously respectable witness whom you have so conveniently brought with you."

''Maitre Pasquier, my reputation-you have deceived me..."

"So you still can't make up your mind, Brother dear? Then let me help you. The police are fully informed of this case. Perhaps they even suspect you of having murdered that poor girl you went and identified as me. Mustapha, I would like you to take a message to Monsieur de La Reynie..."

"Come away, come away-you can settle the claim later." etienne's companion tugged at his sleeve.

"What, going so soon? Just when our conversation has become so charming?" asked Florent as etienne's companion dragged him to the door. "What a pity. Perhaps another time? Farewell, gentlemen."

As the door shut behind them, Sylvie applauded and exclaimed, "Bravo, bravo! Just like at the theatre, magnificent!" Florent and I grinned at each other.

"But unfortunately, unlike the theatre, in real life the curtain does not come down," announced Florent. "He may be back. And if he investigates your claims, the very least that will happen is that our marriage will be revealed to the wrong parties. It's not good. I hadn't planned for this." He began to pace up and down, and his brow was drawn up in a frown. "d.a.m.n him! d.a.m.n him! If he'd come a month later...! Now I'll have to think of something else."

"Astaroth says he will arrange everything," Sylvie announced.

"Will you and that wretched demon shut up? I'm thinking!" exclaimed d'Urbec in pure annoyance. Sylvie burst into tears.

"Now, now, Sylvie," I consoled her, "Monsieur d'Urbec is just upset. He didn't mean any insult to the Prince of Demons, I'm sure." Suddenly, I needed to sit down. etienne had brought a train of ugly memories with him, memories of Uncle, of Father dying in his great bed, of Mother, blind and insane, staggering into the furniture. I did not dare to speak of them, or even to think them for long. I wanted to hide from memory. I sat, putting my hands to my face. I felt transparent with exhaustion. A wraith, a wisp of vapor. "Oh, how will I manage the Comtesse de Soissons's reading this afternoon?" I leaned my head on the back of the chair. "I'm simply too drained to read in the gla.s.s."

"What?" asked Florent. "The comtesse is in town? Why isn't she at court in this season? Everyone who is anyone is at Saint-Germain. Something serious is going on. I only wish I knew what."

"Oh, I don't think so. With that woman, it could be anything from indigestion to a new lover," I answered.

But I was wrong. As I was helped out of my carriage at the foot of the great stairs in the carriage court at the Hotel Soissons, I saw Primi Visconti descending them. He was hunched against the sharp March winds, his cloak pulled tightly around him, his head bent down, the picture of despondency.

"Hey, Monsieur Primi!" I called into the wind, and he tilted his head up and a.s.sumed a jaunty expression as if he hadn't a care in the world.

"Why, h.e.l.lo, Madame de Morville. My congratulations: you look younger every day."

"No thanks to you, Primi. Tell me, what is it today? Another duel of the fortune-tellers? Or shall I be put on exhibit with a clockwork figure and a dancing bear?"

"I suppose I should apologize, Marquise. The King's favorite sport is unmasking fortune-tellers, magicians, and mountebanks."

"Next time unmask yourself, Primi, you charlatan. I've half a mind to burn a f.a.ggot against you and give you a dreadful curse, just to teach you a lesson."

"Ah, I always said you were a witch-not that it matters anymore," he said, sighing.

"So what have you to be sad about? He made you a favorite, but he ruined me."

"We are all ruined now, little marquise. I would flee, but I am in love. So I'll stay, and risk everything."

"I'll be frozen long before I'm starved. Let's stand in the doorway."

"Better to freeze, in this case. We shouldn't be overheard." He gestured to the Swiss guard in livery standing at the great double doors of the mansion. The cold wind seemed to want to blow us apart as we stood together on the wide stone staircase. "The rumor has been about town in the last few days that the fortune-tellers of Paris have enhanced the quality of their predictions by poison. Some dreadful old woman I never heard of was arrested. Marie Bosse, they called her. She implicated a fortune-teller called La Vigoreux. I met this woman once at Madame de Va.s.se's-she read my palm. Now she is at the Chateau de Vincennes, and they say she is giving the names of her accomplices under torture."

"Primi, you are morbid-one little palm reading? They'll find you innocent, just like all the other silly women who had their palms read by her." But the barb went wild. Primi was too upset to notice.

"If that were only so," he said, looking frantic. "But Marquise, for me it is worse than you can imagine. The woman I love-oh, Marquise, you should see her! She is a divinity!" His mood shifted just as suddenly as it had collapsed. He kissed his fingers at the mere thought of this woman, then went on. "We met when she called me to read her palm. One look, and I was immediately in love. Those eyes! That adorable waist! I just had to win her! I read her fortune. I predicted that she would soon fall pa.s.sionately in love with me and be my bride. Unfortunately, she was already married. Doubly unfortunately, her husband has fallen ill and died, putting me under suspicion that I poisoned him with the aid of this La Vigoreux."

"So you have given her up?"

"Give her up? What madness! Of course not. We make pa.s.sionate love every evening. I am bound by Cupid's chains-it is my destiny to perish of love..."

"Primi, you are a madman."

"Of course. What other way is there to be in this insane world? Adieu, Marquise. We may only meet again in the next world-"

"Primi, wait-" I cried into the wind, as he started down the stairs. He turned, and the wind blew his words back to me.

"No more; it's all finished, our world. Over. Go console the countess, but be sure you get your payment on the spot." I watched the slender figure of the Italian as he climbed into the waiting carriage. As the coachman gathered the reins and drove off, I could see Primi slumped in back, his hat pulled over his eyes.

I waited for a long time in the cold, marble-floored antechamber of the countess's rooms. The gla.s.s panes rattled in the tall windows, and I could feel the drafts blowing under the gilt-paneled doors. What could she want, the countess? She was consulting fortune-tellers-something must have happened at court. She'd heard something that had sent her once again to the occult. Either something she wanted, or something she was afraid of. But what?

The countess's face was drawn; she had tried to conceal the new lines that crossed her ravaged cheeks with heavy white makeup. Her eyes darted from side to side in her narrow little face; her smile was so strangely pulled out that it looked like some sort of soundless scream. This time, it isn't because she wants the King for a lover, I said to myself. This is fear.

"Madame de-well, whatever you call yourself now, I know you read true. Visconti, he saw a break in my line of fate; he saw disgrace, a fall, in the cards. A secret of my past will emerge from darkness into the light." Ah, that was it. The rumors swarming around the arrest of La Bosse and La Vigoreux that Visconti had warned me about. But he didn't know what I knew, that the investigation had stopped short. The arrests had gathered in only La Bosse's people, and no one had touched La Voisin or her close a.s.sociates. Had the countess gotten the poison with which she had removed her husband from La Bosse? If so, she had a right to be worried. La Bosse had been under torture for several weeks now and might well have been made to produce a list of her clients. And now through the gossipy magistrates, some sort of news had escaped La Reynie's secret inquiry into the families of the robe, and thence to court. And if it wasn't a matter of her husband, what other persons had left this earth by the countess's little white hand? Perhaps enough to condemn even a woman of her rank.

"You wish to know your future," I announced, unrolling my cloth.

She leaned over the gla.s.s as I stirred, the diamonds on her bosom reflecting little rainbows into the water.

"Madame, please-the colors of your gown, your jewels, they interfere with the image."

"I must know," she said, moving back slightly.

"I see the same image I saw for you many years ago: your carriage at night, your footmen in plain gray, your horses at full speed, hurrying through the dark. The Marquise d'Alluye is with you. You are not speaking...your faces are tense."

"Not an a.s.signation after all-no, flight. And to think that for years I have supposed that reading to be your one failure! Oh, how bitter! You saw it all along. Why didn't you warn me?"