"Oh, don't think I go too far! Don't for a moment suppose that I am pretending that the geography of the future, mountains, plains—the ups and downs of life—can be studied from the map of the hand."
"And yet I have heard——"
"Charlatans profess to do so? Oh, yes; scores of them. I can understand a nimble-witted, half-a-guinea—or a guinea if she can get it—Regent Street sibyl professing so. That is fraud; absolute downright fraud. But I believe that much of a man's or woman's temperament, disposition, call it what you will, can be plainly read from the lines of the hand."
"Read mine."
She spoke impulsively. Persuasively too, the while she pulled off her glove. Palmistry, if it does not truly predict fate, is ofttimes responsible for much of its direction.
To hold her warm little hand in his—she had kept it close within the recesses of her muff—was much too good an opportunity to let slip. He bent over; spent quite a time on the study of the lines on her palm. He had only the light of the moon to work by; perhaps that accounted for the time expenditure; or perhaps he—well, anyway, he was holding her hand all the while.
During the task—it was a silent one—he was tempted, sore, to put his lips in the warm centre of what he held. Possibly she divined that; gathered it perhaps from the trembling of his fingers as they grasped her own. Stiffening a little, she queried:
"Well?"
Her voice was as the application of a brake; pulled him up. Tightening his hold on himself he loosened his tongue.
"Temperament first," he answered. "Passionate—wilful—affectionate—hasty——"