"Of both!"
"Give me the details of each horoscope!"
The astrologer nodded.
Theodora watched him from behind her veil as closely as he did her, for ever and anon he stole furtive glances at her and was immediately seized with his cough.
His voice grated strangely in her ear as he spoke.
"The first, whose nativity I have calculated, is that of one born thirty years, one hundred and seventeen days, and ten hours from this moment. It was a birth under the sign of the Serpent, at an hour charged with vast possibilities for the future. At that instant the Zodiac was moved by portentous lights and the earth shook with tremors as I have ascertained in the records of our art!"
"What are the signs of the future?" the woman interrupted the speaker. "What is past and gone, we all know, even without the aid of your profound wisdom. What of the future, I ask?" she concluded imperiously.
"I hate to impart to you what I have found," said the astrologer cringing. "It is terrible. The declination of the house of Death stands close to the right ascension of the house of Life!"
Theodora gave a sudden start. For a moment she seemed to lose her self-control. Her piercing eyes seemed to look the astrologer through and through, though he had shrunk back into the wide girth of his mantle.
"Give me the scroll!"