It was the same afternoon.
Balsamo stared calmly at a young dark-browed man who had entered his
sanctuary with much the same air as a village bumpkin assumes when he is
about to be shown the three-card trick on a race-course. Balsamo did not
even ask him to sit down.
"Why do you come to me? You don't believe in me," said Balsamo, curtly.
"Why waste your half-sovereign?"
Ralph Martin, not being talkative, said nothing.
"However!" Balsamo proceeded. "Sit down, please. Let me look at your
hands. Ah! yes! Do you want to know anything?"
"Yes, of course."
"Everything?"
"Certainly."
"Let me advise you, then, to give up all thoughts of that woman."
"What woman?"
"You know what woman. She is a very little woman. Once she was nearly
drowned--far from here. You've loved her for a long time. You thought it
was a certainty. And upon my soul you were justified in thinking
so--almost! Look at that line. But it isn't a certainty. Look at that
line!"
Balsamo gazed at him coldly, and Ralph Martin knew not what to do or to
say. He was astounded; he was frightened; he was desolated. He perceived
at once that palmistry was after all a terrible reality.
"Tell me some more," he murmured.
And so Balsamo told him a great deal more, including full details of a
woman far finer than Florence Bostock, whom he was destined to meet in
the following year. But Ralph Martin would have none of this new woman.
Then Balsamo said suddenly:
"She is coming. I see her coming."
"Who?"
"The little woman. She is dressed in white, with a gold-and-white
sunshade, and yellow gloves and boots, and she has a gold reticule in
her hand. Is that she?"
Ralph Martin admitted that it was she. On the other hand, Balsamo did
not admit that he had seen her an hour earlier and had made an
appointment with her.
There was a quiet knock on the door. Ralph started.
"You hear," said Balsamo, quietly, "I fear you will never win her."
"You said just now positively that I shouldn't," Ralph exclaimed.
"I did not," said Balsamo. "I would like to help you. I am very sorry
for you. It is not often I see a hand like yours. I might be able to
help you; the destiny is not yet settled."
"I'll give you anything to help me," said Ralph.
"It will be a couple of guineas," said Balsamo.
"But what guarantee have I?" Ralph asked rudely, when he had paid the
money--to Balsamo, not to the secretary. Such changes of humour were
characteristic of him.
"None!" said Balsamo, with dignity, putting the sovereigns on the table.
"But I am sorry for you. I will tell you what you can do. You can go
behind those curtains there"--he pointed to the inner door--"and listen
to all that I say."
A proposal open to moral objections! But when you are in the state that
Ralph Martin was in, and have experienced what he had just experienced,
your out-look upon morals is apt to be disturbed.