Mademoiselle watched her interlocutor with a certain uneasiness. Was he speaking seriously? Was he making fun of her? Or did he conceal beneath his assumed indifference a desire to remain unrecognized?
"Then you prefer chiromancy?" she asked.
"Yes," replied the incroyable; "for with chiromancy, were you the devil himself, or his wife Proserpine," and he bowed gallantly to Mademoiselle Lenormand, "I should not fear for the safety of my soul, since the patriarch Job has said (verse 7, chapter xxxvii.), 'God hath drawn lines in the hands of men in order that each may know his destiny.' And Solomon, the pre-eminently wise king, added: 'Length of life is marked in the right hand, and the lines of the left hand betoken wisdom and glory.' Finally we read in the prophet Isaiah, 'Your hand denotes that you will live a long time.' Here is mine, what does it say?"
As he spoke, the young incroyable took off his glove and extended a hand that was delicate and well-shaped, although thin and tanned by the sun. Its proportions were perfect, the fingers long and smooth; and he wore no rings.
Mademoiselle Lenormand took it and examined it carefully. Then her eyes turned from the young man's hand to his face.
"Sir," said she, "it must have cost your natural dignity much to clothe yourself as you have, and in so doing, you must have yielded, either to a great curiosity, or to the first expression of an unconquerable feeling. You are wearing a disguise and not your accustomed attire. Your hand is that of a soldier accustomed to wield the sword rather than to twirl the cane of an incroyable, or the switch of a dandy. Neither is this language you now affect natural to you. You know all of these sciences which you have mentioned, but you have learned them while studying others which you deemed more important. You have a taste for occult researches, but your future is not that of a Nicolas Flamel or a Cagliostro. You have asked in jest for a horoscope similar to the one which was cast at the birth of Alexander, son of Philip of Macedon. It is too late to cast the horoscope of your birth, but I can tell you what has happened to you since your birth, and what the future holds in store for you."
"Faith, you are right," said the young man in his natural voice, "and I confess that I am ill at ease in this disguise; neither, as you have said, am I accustomed to this language which I have just now used. Had you been deceived by my language and my attire, I should have said nothing, and would have left you with a shrug of the shoulders. The discovery which you have made in spite of my efforts to deceive you, proves to me that there is something in your art. I well know that it is tempting God," he added gloomily, "to seek to wrest from him the secrets of the future; but where is the man who feels within himself the power to achieve great things, who would not wish to aid, by a knowledge of the future, the events which life holds in store for him? You say that you will tell me of my past life. I ask but a few words on that score, being anxious rather to know the future. I repeat, here is my hand."
Mademoiselle Lenormand's eyes rested for a moment on the palm of his hand, then, raising her head, she said: