“Turn out? Well, it turned out in a thumping big family of thirteen children,” the Colonel answered; “most of whom, happily for the father, died young, But the five who survived, and who married at last into very good connections, all had one peculiarity, which they transmitted to all their female descendants. Very odd these hereditary traits, to be sure. Very singular! Very singular!”
“Ah, to be sure,” the manager answered, turning over a pile of letters. “And what was the hereditary trait handed down, as you say, in the family of the Roumanian lady?”
“Why, in the first place,” the Colonel continued, leaning back in his chair, and making himself perfectly comfortable, “all the girls of the Ewes connection, to the third and fourth generation, have olive-brown complexions, creamy and soft, but clear as crystal. Then again, they’ve all got most extraordinary intuition—a perfectly marvellous gift of reading faces. By George, sir,” the Colonel exclaimed, growing hot and red at the memory of that afternoon on the Holkers’ lawn, “I don’t like to see those women’s eyes fixed upon my cheek when there’s anything going on I don’t want them to know. A man’s transparent like glass before them. They see into his very soul. They look right through him.”
“If the lady who founded the family habits was a fortune-teller,” the manager interposed, with a scientific air, “that’s not so remarkable; for fortune-tellers must always be quick-witted people, keen to perceive the changes of countenance in the dupes who employ them, and prompt at humouring all the fads and fancies of their customers, mustn’t they?”
“Quite so,” the Colonel echoed. “You’ve hit it on the nail. And this particular lady—Esmeralda they call her, so that Elma, which is short for Esmeralda, understand, has come to be the regular Christian name among all her women descendants—this particular lady belonged to what you might call a caste or priestly family, as it were, of hereditary fortune-tellers, every one of whose ancestors had been specially selected for generations for the work, till a kind of transmissible mesmeric habit got developed among them. And they do say,” the Colonel went on, lowering his voice a little more to a confidential whisper, “that all the girls descended from Madame Esmeralda—Lady Ewes of Charlwood, as she was in England—retain to this day another still odder and uncannier mark of their peculiar origin; but, of course, it’s a story that would be hard to substantiate, though I’ve heard it discussed more than once among the friends of the family.”
“Dear me! What’s that?” the manager asked, in a tone of marked curiosity.
“Why, they do say,” the Colonel went on, now fairly launched upon a piece of after-dinner gossip, “that the eastern snake-dance of Madame Esmeralda’s people is hereditary even still among the women of the family, and that, sooner or later, it breaks out unexpectedly in every one of them. When the fit comes on, they shut themselves up in their own rooms, I’ve been told, and twirl round and round for hours like dancing dervishes, with anything they can get in their hands to represent a serpent, till they fall exhausted with the hysterical effort. Even if a woman of Esmeralda’s blood escapes it at all other times, it’s sure to break out when she first sees a real live snake, or falls in love for the first time. Then the dormant instincts of the race come over her with a rush, at the very dawn of womanhood, all quickened and aroused, as it were, in the general awakening.”
“That’s very curious!” the manager said, leaning back in his chair in turn, and twirling his thumbs, “very curious indeed; and yet, in its way, very probable, very probable. For habits like those must set themselves deep in the very core of the system, don’t you think, Colonel? If this woman, now, was descended from a whole line of ancestresses, who had all been trained for their work into a sort of ecstatic fervour, the ecstasy and all that went with it must have got so deeply ingrained—”
“I beg your pardon,” the Colonel interrupted, consulting his watch and seizing his hat hastily—for as a Kelmscott, he refused point-blank to be lectured—“I’ve an appointment at my club at half-past three, and I must not wait any longer. Well, you’ll get these young men’s address for me, then, at the very earliest possible opportunity?”
The manager pocketed the snub, and bowed his farewell. “Oh, certainly,” he answered, trying to look as pleased and gracious as his features would permit. “Our confidential clerk will hunt them up immediately. We’re delighted to be of use to you. Good morning. Good morning.”