“Why did you make me begin again? I am sure the first throw counted.”
“It would have done if you had expressed a wish, but you did not. You are the only one who knows what your desire was.”
“Besides, dice prove nothing. It is a Greek game. I don’t believe in it. I am going to try something else.”
She dried her tears and crossed the room. She took from the table a box of white counters, selected twenty-two of them, and then with the point of a pearl hook scratched one after the other the letters of the Hebrew alphabet upon them.
“I rely upon this. It never deceives one,” she said. “Raise the front of your robe, that shall be my bag.”
She threw the twenty-two counters into the slave’s tunic, repeating in her mind—
“Shall I wear Aphrodite’s necklace? Shall I wear Aphrodite’s necklace? Shall I wear Aphrodite’s necklace?”
She drew out the tenth arcanum which clearly meant—
“Yes.”