The Chink in the Armour | Page 8

dear pearls changed by some clever jeweller, though, to
be sure, she felt she would have known her string of pearls anywhere!
* * * * *
But what was this that was going on between the other two?
Madame Cagliostra dealt out the pack of cards in a slow, deliberate
fashion--and then she uttered a kind of low hoarse cry, and mixed the
cards all together, hurriedly.
Getting up from the table, she exclaimed, "I regret, Madame, that I can
tell you nothing--nothing at all! I feel ill--very ill!" and, indeed, she had
turned, even to Sylvia's young and unobservant eyes, terribly pale.
For some moments the soothsayer stood staring into Anna Wolsky's
astonished face.
"I know I've disappointed you, Mesdames, but I hope this will not
prevent your telling your friends of my powers. Allow me to assure you
that it is not often that I am taken in this way!"
Her voice had dropped to a whisper. She was now gazing down at the
pack of cards which lay on the table with a look of horror and
oppression on her face.
"I will only charge five francs," she muttered at last, "for I know that I
have not satisfied you."

Sylvia sprang to the window. She tore apart the curtains and pulled up
the sash.
"No wonder the poor woman feels faint," she said quickly. "It's absurd
to sit with a window tight shut in this kind of room, which is little more
than a box with three people in it!"
Madame Cagliostra had sunk down into her chair again.
"I must beg you to go away, Mesdames," she muttered, faintly. "Five
francs is all I ask of you."
But Anna Wolsky was behaving in what appeared to Sylvia a very
strange manner. She walked round to where the fortune-teller was
sitting.
"You saw something in the cards which you do not wish to tell me?"
she said imperiously. "I do not mind being told the truth. I am not a
child."
"I swear I saw nothing!" cried the Frenchwoman angrily. "I am too ill
to see anything. The cards were to me perfectly blank!"
In the bright sunlight now pouring into the little room the soothsayer
looked ghastly, her skin had turned a greenish white.
"Mesdames, I beg you to excuse me," she said again. "If you do not
wish to give me the five francs, I will not exact any fee."
She pointed with a shaking finger to the door, and Sylvia put a
five-franc piece down on the table.
But before her visitors had quite groped their way to the end of the
short, steep staircase, they heard a cry.
"Mesdames!" then after a moment's pause, "Mesdames, I implore you
to come back!"
They looked at one another, and then Anna, putting her finger to her

lips, went back up the stairs, alone.
"Well," she said, briefly, "I knew you had something to tell me. What is
it?"
"No," said Madame Cagliostra dully. "I must have the other lady here,
too. You must both be present to hear what I have to say."
Anna went to the door and called out, "Come up Sylvia! She wants to
see us both together."
There was a thrill of excitement, of eager expectancy in Madame
Wolsky's voice; and Sylvia, surprised, ran up again into the little room,
now full of light, sun, and air.
"Stand side by side," ordered the soothsayer shortly. She stared at them
for a moment, and then she said with extreme earnestness:--
"I dare not let you go away without giving you a warning. Your two
fates are closely intertwined. Do not leave Paris for awhile, especially
do not leave Paris together. I see you both running into terrible danger!
If you do go away--and I greatly fear that you will do so--then I advise
you, together and separately, to return to Paris as soon as possible."
"One question I must ask of you," said Anna Wolsky urgently. "How
goes my luck? You know what I mean? I play!"
"It is not your luck that is threatened," replied the fortune-teller,
solemnly; "on the contrary, I see wonderful luck; packets of bank-notes
and rouleaux of gold! It is not your luck--it is something far, far more
important that is in peril. Something which means far more to you even
than your luck!"
The Polish woman smiled rather sadly.
"I wonder what that can be?" she exclaimed.
"It is your life!"

"My life?" echoed Anna. "I do not know that I value my life as much as
you think I do."
"The English have a proverb, Madame, which says: 'A short life and a
merry one.'"
"Can you predict that I shall have, if a short life, then a merry one?"
"Yes," said Madame Cagliostra, "that I