“Gladly, gladly, but when I look into the past, I must be alone with the questioner. Be kind enough to give Zorrillo your company for quarter of an hour, Sergeant.”
“Don’t believe everything she tells you, and don’t look too deep into her eyes. Come, Lelaps, my son!” cried the lansquenet, and did as he was requested.
The woman dealt the cards silently, with trembling hands, but Ulrich thought: “Now she will try to sound me, and a thousand to one will do everything in her power to disgust me with desiring the Eletto’s baton. That’s the way blockheads are caught. We will keep to the past.”
His companion met this resolution halfway; for before she had dealt the last two rows, she rested her chin on the cards in her hands and, trying to meet his glance, asked:
“How shall we begin? Do you still remember your childhood?”
“Certainly.”
“Your father?”
“I have not seen him for a long time. Don’t the cards tell you, that he is dead?”
“Dead, dead:—of course he’s dead. You had a mother too?”
“Yes, yes,” he answered impatiently; for he was unwilling to talk with this woman about his mother.