Aloud he said: “So you wanted to study me in repose? Why waste your time? I am never in repose.”
“Feminine curiosity, Mr. Webster. Billy has talked so much of you that I wanted to see if you measured up to the specifications.”
“I don't mind your looking at me, Miss Ruey, but I get fidgety when you look through me.” He was glad he said that, because it made her laugh—more immoderately, Webster thought, than the circumstances demanded. Nevertheless he had an insane desire to make her laugh like that again, to watch her mobile features run the gamut from sweet, nunlike repose to mirthful riot.
“I can't help it—really,” she protested. “You're so transparent.”
Mr. Webster reflected that doubtless she was right. Men in his fix generally were pitifully obvious. Nevertheless he was nettled. “Oh, I'm not so sure of that. I was just accusing myself of being a bonehead, and bone is opaque.”
“Perhaps I have an X-ray eye,” she replied demurely. “However, just to show you how easy you are to read, I'll not look at your silly head. Just let me have your hand, and I'll tell you all about yourself.”
“Is there any charge?”
“Yes, a nominal one. However, I guarantee a truthful reading; if, when I am through, you are not wholly satisfied, you do not have to pay the price. Is that a satisfactory arrangement?”
“Right as a fox,” he declared, and held out his great calloused hand. He thrilled as she took it in both of hers, so soft and beautiful, and flattened it out, palm upward, on her knee. “A fine, large, useful hand,” she commented musingly. “The callouses indicate recent hard manual toil with a pick land shovel; despite your recent efforts with soap and brush and pumice-stone, there still remain evidences of some foreign matter ingrained in those callous spots. While, of course, I cannot be certain of my diagnosis without a magnifying glass, I venture the conjecture that it is a mineral substance, and your hands are so tanned one can readily see you have been working in the sun—in a very hot sun, as a matter of fact. Inasmuch as the hottest sun I ever felt was in Death Valley, as I crossed it on the train last month, your hand tells me you have been there.
“The general structure of the hand indicates that you are of a peace-loving disposition, but are far from being a peace-at-any-price advocate.” She flipped his hand over suddenly. “Ah, the knuckles confirm that last statement. They tell me you will fight on provocation; while your fingers are still stiff and thick from your recent severe labours, nevertheless they indicate an artistic nature, from which I deduce that upon the occasion when you were in conflict last your opponent received a most artistic thrashing.”