Just as the train was starting, the door of my carriage was opened, and
a woman was hoisted in.
She stuck a glass in her eye and waved to her breathless squire.
“So long, Nosey,” she said. “’Fraid I’m out of bananas, but here’s an
onion’s heart.”
She blew him a kiss and flung herself back in her seat.
I knew her at once: and I began to wonder if she’ld remember me. She
did. After a little reflection she opened her mouth.
“Didn’t I meet you,” she said, “at the Meurices’?”
“That’s right,” said I. “You told my fortune from my hand.”
She looked at me sharply.
“I remember,” she said. “Did—did it ever come true?”
“Half of it did. You said I should meet a man who’ld have a terrific
influence on my life—indirectly, through somebody else. Well, you were
perfectly right.”
“That all?” she said, looking at me very hard.
“Yes,” I said. “That’s all that’s been fulfilled. So far as I know, I’ve
had no influence on him. And I assume I should know. Mine was to be
direct, if you remember.”
“And physical,” said Sarah Roach.
“And physical,” said I, “whatever that may mean. If it’s coming off,
it’ll have to come off quick. He’s over seventy-four, and the papers say
he’s ill.”
Miss Roach stared at me as if I was drunk.
“Seventy-four?” she snapped. “Who—what’s his name?”
“That I can’t tell you,” said I. “But he’s in Debrett. Why shouldn’t he
be seventy-four?”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
She picked up her papers then, and we said no more.