“My uncle thought we were quarrelling perhaps,” said he in a leisurely manner.
But the knowledge that everything he uttered could be heard by a person who might or might not be a desirable confidant cast a strong constraint on Lauriston, who tossed the end of his cigar into an ash-tray by his side and made at once for the door. The merchant shook his head gently, and with courteous words begged him to return.
“I guessed the truth before, and you must pardon my anxiety to have it confirmed by your own lips,” he said gravely and deferentially. “Or rather,” he went on, as Lauriston turned and hesitated, “I did not guess, I knew.”
In his astonishment at the merchant’s confident tone, his companion came a step nearer to the chair he had left, and at the next words of his host reseated himself, overcome by an attraction he this time made no great effort to resist.
“Between your first and your second visit I learnt the causes and effects of your appearance here; between your second visit and this, the third, I learnt that it was not your intention to appear here again.”
“How did you learn it?” asked Lauriston, with some incredulity, but with the tinge of respect for possibly supernatural agencies to be expected in a man brought up north o’ Tweed.
“You are an Englishman, and would not believe me. Yours is a brave nation, an energetic and a splendid race; but you have no imagination, no religion but faith in beef and bricks and mortar and the Stock Exchange.”
“I believe in beef certainly, and I don’t like humbug,” said the young officer rather shortly. “But I’m not a fool, and when I hear about anything of which I have no experience, I listen and do my best to understand.”
The merchant bowed and went on: “You are doubtless not ignorant, Mr. Lauriston, of the importance we of the East attach to astral influences, nor of the fact that the subject is with us considered a study worthy a high place among the sciences.” Lauriston bowed his head in assent. “It is one of the principles of that science—you understand I speak according to the beliefs of my countrymen, without prejudice to the acumen of yours—that persons born under the ascendency of a particular star, whose name in your tongue I do not know, and whose name in mine would bear no meaning to you, possess a power which I can best describe as magnetic over persons born under the ascendency of another particular planet. Now I am one of the former class, and the lady who lives on the first floor of this house is one of the latter.”
Lauriston felt an impulse of rage at the fellow’s presumption.