"It is the one by which I am known."
"That means," said Mrs. Vandeleur, putting down her eye-glasses and tapping her thin fingers with them, "that you have reasons for concealing your identity?"
"I had at one time, Mrs. Vandeleur, and I have now got used to the names of Lina Grahame, to which I have some right!"
"The surname was a family name?"
"Yes!"
Grahame was indeed the maiden name of Laline's mother, and the girl was startled and interested by Mrs. Vandeleur's surmise.
"I was often called Lina as a child," she added, quickly, to forestall Mrs. Vandeleur's interrogatories.
"The mystery concerns a man," said the little lady in gray, peering again at Laline through her gold-rimmed glasses. "And yet your face——Take off your glove—no, the left hand—and let me look at your lines!"
Laline obeyed. As she did so, with startling distinctness there flashed back upon her memory a similar scene in which she had taken part more than four years ago. In her mind's eye she saw it all again—the hot stirless afternoon in mid-August, the sun's rays shining over a long stretch of gleaming sand and peeping under the straw hat-brim of a big black-haired Englishman with insolent, bright blue eyes. By his side sat a thin over-grown girl of sixteen, listening in rapt silence while he told her fortune by the lines of her hand, and prophesied that all her life through she would be haunted by the influence of a stronger will than hers, and that, before the age of seventeen, she would marry a man who would never cease to dominate her life until death should part them.
Half dreamily, with her thoughts elsewhere, she began to listen while Mrs. Vandeleur, in a level, monotonous voice, as though speaking words dictated to her rather than spontaneous utterances, began to repeat aloud what she professed to read in Laline's hand.