She began with the weather, referring to it in obvious commonplaces, eliciting his condemnation of the temperature. She offered to light the gas-log and succeeded, during the conversational skirmish, in drawing from him the fact that he suffered from rheumatism, especially when the wind was north.
Madam Spoll allowed the ghost of a smile to haunt her face for a brief moment. "Lucky you ain't got my weight, it gets to you something terrible when you're fat. I ain't quite so slim as I used to be." She looked up from the grate coquettishly, marking the effect of her words.
"Now let's set down and get ready," she said, going over to the frail table and pressing her hands to her forehead. "I ain't in proper condition to-day; I've been working hard and my magnetism's about wore out. But I'll see what I can do."
He took a seat opposite her and waited. His attitude was benignly judicial; his eyes were fixed upon her, through his gold-bowed spectacles.
"Funny thing how different people are," she began. "Now, I get your condition right off. You ain't at all like the rest of the folks that come here. I get a condition of study, like. I see what you might call books around you everywhere—not account-books, but more on the literary. Books and sheep, you understand. Not live ones! I would say they was more on the dead sheep. Flat ones, too, with hair, like—queer, ain't it? Sounds like nonsense I suppose, but that's just what I get. They must be some mistake somehow." She drew her hand across her forehead and snapped the electricity off her finger-tips. Then she rubbed her hands and twisted her mouth. "Do you know what I mean?"
"Why, it might be wool perhaps; I have something to do with wool," he offered.
"Now ain't that strange? It is wool, as sure's you're born! I can see what you might call skins and bales of wool. And I get a condition of business, too—but not what you might call a retail business. Seems like it was more on the wholesale."
"Yes, that's right," he assented, nodding.
"What did I tell you!" she exclaimed. "I do believe I may get something after all, though very often the first time ain't what you might call a success, and sitters are liable to get discouraged. I can tell you only just what my guides give me, you know, and sometimes Luella is pernickerty. She's my chief control. You know how it is yourself, for you'll be a man that knows women right down to the ground, and you've always been a favorite with the ladies, too."
"Oh, I never knew many women," he said modestly.