Anything less like a sibyl could not be easily imagined.

Felicity took off her glove and placed her hand on a yellow cushion. As she did so, she remembered charming things that Chetwode had said about her hands, how he had compared them to white flowers; and she sighed....

"You're vurry sensitive indeed," said the palmist, with a slight American accent. "Your nerves seem to me to be vibrating."

"But isn't that usual?" said Felicity shyly. "I thought nerves always did."

"Just hold the crystal in your hand for a minute or two. Thank you. Ah!

there's a slight cloud on your horizon at this moment, but it will pa.s.s away--I see it pa.s.sing away."

"What else do you see?"

"I see you in a large s.p.a.ce surrounded by a hurrying crowd. There are bookstalls, trucks of luggage, trains, I can't say precisely what it is."

"Surely a railway station?" said Felicity.

"You are perfectly right. I should fancy from this that you are either going to take a journey by rail, or that you are going to see a friend off."

"Do you advise me to take the journey?"

"I fear advice one way or the other would have vurry little effect. I am a believer in Fate. Either you're going to take that journey, or you're not, in spite of anything I may suggest to the contrary."

And the palmist smiled archly, then leant back and closed her eyes.

Felicity wondered if she were tired with the noise of the railway station. But she opened them suddenly, and took Felicity's hand, which she looked at through the magnifying-gla.s.s.

"This is a most interesting hand. Mrs. Ogilvie's gentleman friend, who was in here just now, also had a vurry interesting hand. She's a lovely woman, and her hand is most interesting too...."

She paused.

"You have a curious temperament. You are easily impressed by the personality of other people. You are impulsive and emotional, and yet you have a remarkable amount of calm judgment, so that you can a.n.a.lyse, and watch your own feelings and those of the other persons as well as if it were a matter of indifference to you. Your strong affections never blind you to the faults and weaknesses of their object, and those faults do not make you care for them less, but in some cases attach you even more strongly. You are fond of gaiety; your moods vary easily, because you vibrate to music, bright surroundings, and sympathy. But you have depth, and in an emergency I should say you could be capable even of heroism. You have an astonishing amount of intuition."

"What a horrid little creature!" said Felicity.

"Your tact and knowledge of how to deal with people are so natural to you that you are scarcely conscious of them. You should have been the wife of a great diplomatist."

"But aren't they always very ugly?" asked Felicity.

"You're not as trivial as you wish to appear," replied the palmist; "you are very frank and straightforward, but reserved on subjects that are nearest your heart.... Is there any question you would like to ask me?"

"I should like to know," said Felicity, giving herself away as the most sceptical victim always does, "whether the person I care for is true to me."

As she said the words she thought they sounded as if she were a sentimental shop-girl whose young man had shown signs of ceasing his attentions. And why not? She felt exactly like that shop-girl. It was precisely the same thing.

The palmist smiled sympathetically, and said, "He has no other thought but you. Believe me, you are his one object, and he will be true to you through life."

"And how on earth can you see that?" said Felicity, unreasonably cheered, though inclined to laugh.

"I can't say. It's not possible to explain these things; but here, you see, your Fate line is a wonderfully good one, and it goes parallel (if I may say so) with the heart line. Now, if the _Life_ line had crossed it, or reached the Mount of Luna--well, I should have said you were destined to disappointment in love. But that is not so. You have a lucky hand. You have artistic tastes, but would never work in any direction, except the social--that is why I say a diplomatic circle would have suited you."

Felicity feared the soothsayer was getting rather bored with her, so she said--

"Thank you. Have you any advice to give me before I go?"

"Yes. It would be to your advantage if you used your head less and followed your natural impulses more."

"Then I must throw something at Chetwode's head when I see him," thought Felicity.

As she got up, "I see two beautiful children in your hand," added the palmist.

"Oh, when?" said Felicity, starting, and accidentally knocking down the crystal ball.

"Within the next few years," answered the palmist cautiously.

"Now it's my turn," said Bertie, as Felicity joined them. "Do tell me,"

he said in an undertone, "was there anything about me in your hand?"

"Rather not--not a trace of you. Why, what did you expect?"

"Oh, then I don't think much of her. I thought at least she would see my initials all over your lifeline. I a.s.sure you, any good palmist would.

I'm afraid she's a fraud."

"I trust not. She was rather consoling," said Felicity thoughtfully.

"She was wonderful with me," said Vera, as Bertie disappeared. "I wonder what her nationality really is."

"Thought you said she was a Highlander." Bob looked more puzzled than ever.

"Well, so she is, partly. In a way. Unless I'm mixing her up with some one else."

"And yet Zero isn't a Scotch name," remarked Felicity thoughtfully.

"No; and it's a rotten name too--doesn't suit her a bit. But it's not her real name. On her card is Miss Cora G. Donovan," said Bob.

"How do you know?" asked Vera sharply.

"Well, I had to ask her address. I've got to see her again, don't you know. Before the Derby. To make sure. Only fair to give it a chance,"

said Bob, rather apologetically.

"She's an Irish American," decided Felicity.

"Is she? I dare say she is. I wonder what she'll say to Wilton now,"

said Bob meditatively.

"Bertie will tell her everything he knows about himself, and about every one else in whom either he or she takes the slightest interest. Then he'll go on to tell her character, and prophesy her future, and she'll confide in him, and he'll give her good advice. He always tells fortune-tellers their fortune. That's why he's so popular in the occult world," said Felicity.

"Wonder they stand it," said Bob.