The sorceress saw the tremor. "Are you afraid?" she asked in her metallic voice, which was as expressionless as her mask.
"I am afraid of nothing," replied Vernon boldly and coldly; "but the night air strikes chill."
He thought that he heard a sarcastic laugh, but it was so soft that he well might have been mistaken. However, thinking that the prophetess was sneering at him he might have ventured on some angry remark, but that he recollected his intention and drew back with a grim smile. The laugh would be on his side when the mask was torn off.
"You wish to have your fortune told?" asked Diabella coldly and stretched out her hand. "Let me read your palm."
This was just what Vernon desired, as the grip brought him within snatching distance of the mask. There was a stool near at hand, upon which Diabella motioned that he should be seated; so shortly he was sitting, so to speak, at her feet, with his hand in hers. Shadows filled the corners of the tent and enhanced the grotesque looks of the figures painted on the canvas. The laughter and chatter of the diminishing crowd without had died away into a faint and confused murmur, and in the vivid circle of the lamplight sat the two figures. Diabella, holding back her veil, bent over Vernon's hand in silence.
"You are coming into good fortune," she said thinly. "Yes. Here is the line which foretells money and position. One near to you, if not dear, is on his death-bed and you benefit by his decease. Am I right?"
She raised her glittering eyes again to peer into his face. "If you are certain of your craft, there is no need for you to ask if you are right," said Vernon composedly. He was well aware of how fortune-tellers gain more knowledge than they impart by such dexterously-put questions.
Diabella gave a very modern shrug quite out of keeping with her dress and mien. However, she made no reply and continued her reading. "There is marriage here", she continued in a low voice; "but you have a rival."
"Will he be successful?"
"If he chooses to be."