“Her grammar!” groaned Katherine in a tiny voice.
“Now if you will come into the studio,” the woman urged, “I will read for you from the past, present or future or all three of them. Just state your desires.”
“There was something special,” Peggy told her, “we thought you might be able to read ahead for us.”
“Of course,” agreed the generous creature, “anything. But my charge is a dollar a person.”
“That’s all right.”
“Then come in. Now the young lady in the caracal coat sit on my left, please, and you other on my right. I shall want you to keep very still and not disturb the workings of the supernatural. Which would you rather have me do, tell you by cards or by your palm or by the crystal?”
“Will—will one be just as effective as the other?” asked Peggy doubtfully.
“Be as what?”
“Be as effective, as good, you know, Madame La Mar.”
“Oh, yes,” explained the seeress condescendingly. “I can tell it one way as well as another and I never make a mistake. I’m not like some of these people in this town—limited, you know, to a single style. You can choose any sort whatever and it goes with me. I’m a woman of my word, I am,” her voice was rising, “and I challenge any other clarvoy’nt in this town to tell as much for the money as I do, why—”