One incident, a chance word, in a retrospect of that time, afterwards stood out in Elizabeth's mind, though at the moment it seemed to make but a slight impression.
It was one Sunday afternoon when a number of people, Paul Halleck among them, had dropped in to afternoon tea, and the conversation happened to turn upon palmistry. Elizabeth did not proffer her own experience. She listened silently to what the others said on the subject.
"I can't say I have implicit faith in it," observed Mrs. Bobby. "I was told by a fortune-teller that I should marry a dark man, who would beat me and treat me horribly; and as you see, I've married a fair man—who treats me pretty well on the whole."
Bobby, who was leaning against the mantel-piece his tea-cup in his hand, smiled serenely.
"Don't boast too soon, Eleanor," he said, lazily, "there's no knowing what brutal tendencies I may develop yet."
Mrs. Hartington, who was seated near him on a low chair, looked up into his face with a sympathetic smile. "Are you one of those long-suffering husbands who turn at last, Mr. Van Antwerp?" she asked, sweetly. "It would be good discipline, I think, for Eleanor not to have her own way always."
Bobby looked down at her coolly for a moment with his calm blue eyes. "No doubt, it would be good discipline for all of us, Mrs. Hartington," he said, in his pleasant, clear-cut tones, "but as my wife's way and mine are generally the same, I'm afraid I'm not likely to inflict it."
Mrs. Hartington looked down with an injured air, adding another to her list of grievances against her dear friend and neighbor, Eleanor Van Antwerp.
"I should never go to a common fortune-teller, my dear," she observed in a louder tone, for the benefit of the assembled company. "Yours was probably just an ignorant person. But I did go to ——, who, you know, charges a small fortune, and he told me the most extraordinary things. I have perfect confidence in him; every one I know thinks him quite infallible."
"Do they?" said Paul Halleck, suddenly turning from the piano. He shrugged his shoulders. "I devoutly hope you are mistaken," he said. "—— read my hand in Paris, and told me some very unpleasant things; among others that I was probably destined to a violent death. This year of my life, by the way—the twenty-seventh—was to be my fatal year."