The reading was wound up at that point. The cataloguer paused, as it were, in the middle of his list. In astonishment she asked:
"Why do you stop? Is that all you can read?"
"No—no. But my belief—my faith—is shaken!"
Just a faint tremor in the voice—it was not unnoticed by him—as she asked:
"Faith? In what?"
He fenced. Did not like to shape words around what he thought he read. The truth is not always pleasant. So it was that he answered:
"Palmistry as a science."
The woman's voice was steadied again. There was a ring of merriment in it, ridiculing his seriousness, as she said—
"Why this shaken faith? Because of what you read in my hand?"
"M'yes."