“Dorothy Burns, who sells rare stamps at the Arcade, told me how wonderful you are,” Jeanne murmured wistfully.
This was a well-memorized speech. She was at that moment recalling Florence’s last words before they parted.
“The fortune teller will not ask your name or address. Don’t give them to her. She will, under one pretext or another, ask the name and address of some person whom you know, quite probably a rather humble person. However that may be, give her my name and address. Give her our telephone number, too, and tell her I am always in between three and four in the afternoon.” Jeanne smiled in spite of herself, recalling these words.
But the fortune teller was saying, “Won’t you come in, please? There now. Shall I take your coat? You wanted a reading? Is that not so? My very best readings are two dollars.”
Jeanne removed her coat and placed it upon the back of the chair offered her. She produced two crisp one-dollar bills.
“Ah!” The round face of the fortune teller shone. “You are to have a very wonderful future, I can see that at once.”
“I—I hope so.” Jeanne appeared to falter. “You see—” she leaned forward eagerly. “I have been—well, quite fortunate un—until just lately. And now—” her eyes dropped. “Now things are not so good! And I—you know, I’m worried!”
Jeanne was worried, all about that gorgeous coat. She hoped Florence was near and perhaps a policeman as well, but she need have had no fear.
Florence was near, very near. Having slipped through the outer door, she had found a seat in the dimly lighted corridor. There was a corner in the plastered wall just beyond her. From behind this there floated faint, childish whispers.
At last a face appeared, a slim pinched face surrounded by a mass of uncombed hair. A second face peeked out, then a third.