Sanders had gone, and to get an answer to his question Harkness stared at the doorway, and the building, a somewhat imposing edifice of brick, situated on one of the principal streets. It was given over to offices of various kinds, he judged; but what fixed his eye was a sign with a painted index-hand pointing to it.
“Madame Manton, Seer, Fortune teller, Palmist, and Clairvoyant. Fortune telling and astrology. The past and the future revealed. Lost articles found, dreams interpreted, lovers re-united.”
There was a statement below this, in much smaller letters, setting forth that Madame Manton, who was a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter and from birth gifted with miraculous second-sight, had just returned to America after a prolonged stay in European capitals, during which she had achieved marvellous successes and had been consulted on important matters by the crowned heads.
Harkness did not know whether to connect the egress of William Sanders from that doorway with this fortune teller or not, but the vagaries of his intellectual condition impelled him to enter. Following the direction of the pointing hand, he was soon climbing a stairway which led to the door of this professed mistress of the black arts. Here another sign, with even more emphatic statements, greeted him. On this door Harkness hammered lustily.
“Come in!” said a voice.
Harkness tried the knob with fumbling fingers, then set his massive shoulders to the panel, and was fairly precipitated into the room where a rosy half-light glowed from a red lamp, and the sunlight, showing through heavy red curtains, conjured queer shadows in the corners. At the farther end of the room sat a woman. She was robed in red, and her chair was red. A reddish veil hid her face. But the hand she extended was small and white, and flashed the fire of diamonds.
Harkness was so taken aback that he was almost on the point of bolting from the room. But that would have savored of a lack of courage, and his drink-buoyed mind resented the imputation. He would not run, even from a red fortune teller. Seeing a chair by the door he dropped into it, stared at the woman, and not knowing what else to do took out his red handkerchief to mop his red face. The odor of cinnamon drops floating out from it combined with that of the whiskey and filled the room.
“If you will be kind enough to close the door!” said the woman.
She was looking at him intently. He closed the door, and dropped back into the chair. He crossed his legs nervously, then uncrossed them, wiped his face again with the scented handkerchief, and finally stuck his big hands into his big pockets to get rid of them. He was dressed in half cowboy garb, and it began to dawn on him that he was “cutting a pretty figure,” sitting there with that fortune teller.
“I suppose you’d like to have your fortune told?” she questioned.