The Chink in the Armour | Page 7

in our premonitions. And I confess that I feel
puzzled--exceedingly puzzled--to-day. I do not know that I have ever
had so strange a case as that of this English lady before me! I see so
many roads stretching before her--I also see her going along more than
one road. As a rule, one does not see this in the cards."

She looked really harassed, really distressed, and was still conning her
cards anxiously.
"And yet after all," she cried suddenly, "I may be wrong! Perhaps the
necklace has less to do with it than I thought! I do not know whether
the necklace would make any real difference! If she takes one of the
roads open to her, then I see no danger at all attaching to the
preservation of this necklace. But the other road leads straight to the
House of Peril."
"The House of Peril?" echoed Sylvia Bailey.
"Yes, Madame. Do you not know that all men and women have their
House of Peril--the house whose threshold they should never
cross--behind whose door lies misery, sometimes dishonour?"
"Yes," said Anna Wolsky, "that is true, quite true! There has been, alas!
more than one House of Peril in my life." She added, "But what kind of
place is my friend's House of Peril?"
"It is not a large house," said the fortune-teller, staring down at the
shining surface of her table. "It is a gay, delightful little place,
ladies--quite my idea of a pretty dwelling. But it is filled with horror
unutterable to Madame. Ah! I entreat you"--she stared sadly at
Sylvia--"to beware of unknown buildings, especially if you persist in
keeping and in wearing your necklace."
"Do tell us, Madame, something more about my friend's necklace. Is it,
for instance, of great value, and is it its value that makes it a source of
danger?"
Anna Wolsky wondered very much what would be the answer to this
question. She had had her doubts as to the genuineness of the pearls her
friend wore. Pearls are so exquisitely imitated nowadays, and these
pearls, if genuine, were of such great value!
At first she had not believed them to be real, then gradually she had
become convinced of Sylvia's good faith. If the pearls were false,

Sylvia did not know it.
But Madame Cagliostra's answer was disappointing--or prudent.
"I cannot tell you that," she said. "I cannot even tell you of what the
necklace is composed. It may be of gold, of silver, of diamonds, of
pearls--it may be, I'm inclined to think it is, composed of Egyptian
scarabei. They, as you know, often bring terrible ill-fortune in their
train, especially when they have been taken from the bodies of
mummies. But the necklace has already caused this lady to quarrel with
a very good and sure friend of hers--of that I am sure. And, as I tell you,
I see in the future that this necklace may cause her very serious
trouble--indeed, I see it wound like a serpent round her neck, pressing
ever tighter and tighter--"
She suddenly began shuffling the cards. "And now," she said in a tone
of relief, "I will deal with you, Madame," and she turned to Anna with
a smile.
Sylvia drew her chair a little away from the table.
She felt depressed and uncomfortable. What an odd queer kind of
fortune had been told her! And then it had all been so muddled. She
could scarcely remember what it was that had been told her.
Two things, however, remained very clear in her mind: The one was
the absurd prediction that she might never go back to her own country;
the second was all that extraordinary talk about her pearls. As to the
promised lover, the memory of the soothsayer's words made her feel
very angry. No doubt Frenchwomen liked that sort of innuendo, but it
only disgusted her.
Yet it was really very strange that Madame Cagliostra had known, or
rather had divined, that she possessed a necklace by which she laid
great store. But wasn't there such a thing as telepathy? Isn't it supposed
by some people that fortune-tellers simply see into the minds of those
who come to them, and then arrange what they see there according to
their fancy?

That, of course, would entirely account for all that the fortune-teller had
said about her pearls.
Sylvia always felt a little uncomfortable when her pearls were not lying
round her pretty neck. The first time she had left them in the hotel
bureau, at her new friend's request, was when they had been together to
some place of amusement at night, and she had felt quite miserable,
quite lost without them. She had even caught herself wondering
whether M. Girard was perfectly honest, whether she could trust him
not to have her