‘You knew it by the figure,’ he said. ‘That is the reason you were so confident.’
‘Yes,’ answered Rex quietly. ‘Of course I did.’
‘It is true that you are a first-rate fencer,’ remarked Greif doubtfully.
‘Nothing extraordinary. The man had not a chance, from the first, especially as we settled the matter so soon after the question was asked.’
‘What question?’
‘The question I asked when I set up the figure.’
Greif was silent. He could not bring himself to believe in what he regarded as a sham science, and he could not reconcile any belief in such absurdities with the indubitable fact that Rex was a most enlightened man, learned in his own department, cultivated in mind, a scorner of old-fashioned prejudices and ideas, distrustful of all cheap theories and of all scientific men who talked eloquently about the progress of learning. That such a person should put any faith in astrology was a monstrous incongruity. And yet Rex not only trusted in what he pretended to foretell, but was actually willing to risk serious personal injuries on the strength of his divinations. Greif thought of what he had read concerning fanatics and the almost incredible good fortune which sometimes attended them. Then a wild desire overcame him to know what Rex had seen in the figure on that memorable night which had brought the news of Rieseneck’s intended return.
‘We have not spoken of those things lately,’ he said after a long pause. ‘Will you tell me what it is that must happen to me, according to your theory?’
‘There are some things of which it is best not to talk at all,’ Rex answered, looking earnestly at his companion. His hard eyes softened a little.
‘Is it as bad as that?’ asked Greif with an attempt to laugh.