"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.
She shrank back a little, and said sadly: "That sounds very harsh. Do you no longer like to think of your mother?"
"What is that to you?"
"I must know."
"No, what concerns my mother is . . . I will—is too good for juggling."
"Oh," she said, looking at him with a glance from which he shrank. Then she silently laid down the last cards, and asked: "Do you want to hear anything about a sweetheart?"