"Oh, yes, this is evidently the place!"
Anna Wolsky smiled good-humouredly; she had become extremely fond of the young Englishwoman; she delighted in Sylvia's radiant prettiness, her kindly good-temper, and her eager pleasure in everything.
A large iron gate gave access to the courtyard which was so much larger than the house built round it. But the gate was locked, and a pull at the rusty bell-wire produced no result.
They waited a while. "She must have gone out," said Sylvia, rather disappointed.
But Madame Wolsky, without speaking, again pulled at the rusty wire, and then one of the châlet windows was suddenly flung open from above, and a woman—a dark, middle-aged Frenchwoman—leant out.
"Qui est là?" and then before either of them could answer, the woman had drawn back: a moment later they heard her heavy progress down the creaky stairs of her dwelling.
At last she came out into the courtyard, unlocked the iron gate, and curtly motioned to the two ladies to follow her.
"We have come to see Madame Cagliostra," said Sylvia timidly. She took this stout, untidily-dressed woman for the fortune-teller's servant.
"Madame Cagliostra, at your service!" The woman turned round, her face breaking into a broad smile. She evidently liked the sound of her peculiar name.
They followed her up a dark staircase into a curious little sitting-room. It was scrupulously clean, but about it hung the faint odour which the French eloquently describe as "shut in," and even on this beautiful hot day the windows were tightly closed.
On the red walls hung various drawings of hands, of hearts, and of heads, and over the plain mantelpiece was a really fine pastel portrait of a man, in eighteenth century dress and powdered hair.
"My ancestor, Count Cagliostro, ladies!" exclaimed the fat little woman proudly. "As you will soon see, if you have, as I venture to suppose, come to consult me, I have inherited the great gifts which made Count Cagliostro famous." She waited a moment. "What is it you desire of me? Do you wish for the Grand Jeu? Or do you prefer the Crystal?"
Madame Cagliostra gave a shrewd, measuring glance at the two young women standing before her. She was wondering how much they were good for.
"No doubt you have been told," she said suddenly, "that my fee is five francs. But if you require the Grand Jeu it will be ten francs. Come, ladies, make up your minds; I will give you both the Grand Jeu for fifteen francs!"
Sylvia Bailey's lip quivered; she felt a wild wish to burst out laughing. It was all so absurd; this funny queer house; this odd, stuffy, empty-looking room; and this vulgar, common-looking woman asserting that she was descended from the famous Count Cagliostro! And then, to crown everything, the naïve, rather pathetic, attempt to get an extra five francs out of them.
But Sylvia was a very kindly, happy-natured creature, and she would not have hurt the feelings of even a Madame Cagliostra for the world.
She looked at her friend questioningly. Would it not be better just to give the woman five francs and go away? They surely could not expect to hear anything of any value from such a person. She was evidently a fraud!
But Anna Wolsky was staring at Madame Cagliostra with a serious look.
"Very well," she exclaimed, in her rather indifferent French. "Very well! We will both take the Grand Jeu at fifteen francs the two."
She turned and smiled at Sylvia. "It will be," she said, quaintly, and in English, "my 'treat,' dear friend." And then, as Sylvia shook her head decidedly—there were often these little contests of generosity between the two women—she added rather sharply,
"Yes, yes! It shall be so. I insist! I see you do not believe in our hostess's gift. There are, however, one or two questions I must ask, and to which I fancy she can give me an answer. I am anxious, too, to hear what she will say about you."
Sylvia smiled, and gave way.
Like most prosperous people who have not made the money they are able to spend, Mrs. Bailey did not attach any undue importance to wealth. But she knew that her friend was not as well off as herself, and therefore she was always trying to pay a little more of her share than was fair. Thanks to Madame Wolsky's stronger will, she very seldom succeeded in doing so.
"We might at least ask her to open the window," she said rather plaintively. It really was dreadfully stuffy!
Madame Cagliostra had gone to a sideboard from which she was taking two packs of exceedingly dirty, queer-looking cards. They were the famous Taro cards, but Sylvia did not know that.
When the fortune-teller was asked to open the window, she shook her head decidedly.
"No, no!" she said. "It would dissipate the influences. I cannot do that! On the contrary, the curtains should be drawn close, and if the ladies will permit of it I will light my lamp."
Even as she spoke she was jerking the thick curtains closely together; she even pinned them across so that no ray of the bright sunlight outside could penetrate into the room.
For a few moments they were in complete darkness, and Sylvia felt a queer, eerie sensation of fear, but this soon passed away as the lamp—the "Suspension," as Madame Cagliostra proudly called it—was lit.
When her lamp was well alight, the soothsayer drew three chairs up to the round table, and motioned the two strangers to sit down.
"You will take my friend first," said Anna Wolsky, imperiously; and then, to Sylvia, she said, in English, "Would you rather I went away, dear? I could wait on the staircase till you were ready for me to come back. It is not very pleasant to have one's fortune told when one is as young and as pretty as you are, before other people."
"Of course I don't mind your being here!" cried Sylvia Bailey, laughing—then, looking doubtfully at Madame Cagliostra, though it was obvious the Frenchwoman did not understand English, "The truth is that I should feel rather frightened if you were to leave me here all by myself. So please stay."
Madame Cagliostra began dealing out the cards on the table. First slowly, then quickly, she laid them out in a queer pattern; and as she did so she muttered and murmured to herself. Then a frown came over her face; she began to look disturbed, anxious, almost angry.
Sylvia, in spite of herself, grew interested and excited. She was sorry she had not taken off her wedding-ring. In England the wise woman always takes off her wedding-ring on going to see a fortune-teller. She was also rather glad that she had left her pearls in the safe custody of M. Girard. This little house in the Rue Jolie was a strange, lonely place.
Suddenly Madame Cagliostra began to speak in a quick, clear, monotonous voice.
Keeping her eyes fixed on the cards, which now and again she touched with a fat finger, and without looking at Sylvia, she said:
"Madame has led a very placid, quiet life. Her existence has been a boat that has always lain in harbour—" She suddenly looked up: "I spent my childhood at Dieppe, and that often suggests images to me," she observed complacently, and then she went on in quite another tone of voice:—
"To return to Madame and her fate! The boat has always been in harbour, but now it is about to put out to sea. It will meet there another craft. This other craft is, to Madame, a foreign craft, and I grieve to say it, rather battered. But its timbers are sound, and that is well, for it looks to me as if the sails of Madame's boat would mingle, at any rate for a time with this battered craft."
"I don't understand what she means," said Sylvia, in a whisper. "Do ask her to explain, Anna!"
"My friend asks you to drop metaphor," said the older woman, drily.
The soothsayer fixed her bright, beady little eyes on Sylvia's flushed face.
"Well," she said deliberately, "I see you falling in love, and I also see that falling in love is quite a new experience. It burns, it scorches