"Then," she said, "you would advise me to—to break my word?"
"Under the circumstances—yes," he said, steadily. "But don't," he went on quickly, and passionate vibration thrilled his voice, more unrepressed than ever before, "don't be guided by my opinion. In this particular case it is—impossible for me to judge impartially."
"Is it," she asked softly, and then added quickly, as if to avert an answer, "still, I'm glad to know your opinion. I feel sure you wouldn't say what you don't think. Thank you—thank you very much." Her tone was low and subdued, like that of a grateful child. She leaned back in her chair with a look of relief, that seemed both physical and mental. She did not speak again till near the end of the act, when Carmen reads her fortune in the cards. "I wonder," Elizabeth said then, softly, "what she sees in them."
"I had my fortune told once," she observed, turning to Gerard, as the curtain fell. "It was when I was at school, and I went with one of the girls to a famous palmist. He told me all sorts of strange, true things about the past, and about the future."—She paused.
"Well, about the future?" he asked, smiling. "One doesn't care about the past. But he predicted, no doubt, all sorts of delightful things about the future?"
"No." She stared thoughtfully before her with knit brows. "He said"—she spoke low and hesitatingly—"he said there was luck in my hand—plenty of it; I should have splendid opportunities. But—he said there was a line of misfortune, which crossed the other line and might make it utterly useless; that there was danger of some kind—he couldn't tell what, threatening me about my twenty-first year, and that, you know, is very near; he said there were strange lines—tragic, unusual,"—She stopped. "It sounds very ridiculous," but though she tried to smile, her voice trembled, "and yet—I remember it frightened me at the time, and does still—a little—when I think of it."
"But you don't surely," cried Gerard, "my dear child, you don't suppose he knew a thing about it?"
"I don't know. I believe I'm superstitious—are not you?"
"I'm afraid I am," he said, "but not about things like that. I've seen too many predictions of the kind prove false, to give them a thought."
"It is foolish to worry about them," she admitted, but still she sat apparently deep in thought and played absently with her fan. At last she looked up with her most brilliant smile. "I don't know why it is," she said, "but we seem to be fated on unpleasant subjects. And yet the opera is so gay. Do let us try, for the rest of the evening, to think of pleasant things." She turned and held out her hand, smiling, to a man who entered the box. For the rest of the opera she was brilliant, animated, beautiful, as she had been at first.