As the clock struck twelve, Kent and Mrs. Blair passed from the broad noonday glare of the street into the tempered darkness of a strange apartment. It was hung about with black cloths, and lighted by the effulgence of an artificial half-moon and several planets, contrived, Kent conjectured, of isinglass set into the fabric, with arc lights behind them. A soft-footed servitor, clad throughout in black, appeared from nowhere, provided chairs, set a pitcher of water beside them, and vanished silently. A faint, heavy, but not unpleasant odor as of incense, hovered in the air. The moon waxed slowly in brightness, illumining the two figures.
“Very well fixed up,” whispered Kent to his companion. “The astrologer is now looking us over.”
In fact, at that moment, a contemplating and estimating eye was fixed upon them from a “dead” star in the farther wall. The eye beheld a girl whose delicate but vivid loveliness was undimmed by the grisly trappings of mourning which a Christian civilization has borrowed from barbarism to belie its own Christianity withal, rested a moment, and passed, with more of scrutiny, to her companion.
Preston Jax did not, as a rule, receive more than one client at a time. Police witnesses travel in pairs, and the Star-master was of a suspicious nature. Only an extraordinary fee, and the cultured languor of the voice which requested the appointment over the telephone, had induced him to relax his rule. Now, however, his uneasiness was appeased. He beheld a gentleman clad in such apparel as never police spy nor investigating agent wore; a rather puzzling “swellness” (the term is culled from Mr. Jax’s envious thoughts), since it appeared to be individual, without being in any particular conspicuous. Mr. Jax, an adept in extracting information, wondered if he could persuade the visitor to disclose his tailor to the stars; for he was, himself, in light vacational moments at Atlantic City and in the Waldorf-Astoria something of a “dresser”. One point, however, the connoisseurship of the Star-master could hardly approve: the monocle displayed in his visitor’s left eye, though it was reassuring to his professional judgment. The visitor was obviously “light”.
Quitting his peep-hole, the Star-master pressed a button. Strains of music, soft and sourceless, filled the air (from a phonograph muffled in rugs). The moon glow paled a little. There was a soft rustle and fluctuation of wall draperies in the apartment. The light waxed. The Star-master stood before his visitors.
They beheld a man of undistinguished size and form, eked out by a splendid pomposity of manner. To this his garb contributed. All the signs of the zodiac had lent magnificence to the long, black, loose robe with gaping sleeves, which he wore. Mrs. Blair noted with vague interest that it was all hand embroidered.
Pale and hard the face rose from this somber and gorgeous appareling. It was a remarkable face, small, calm, and compacted of muscles. Muscles plumped out the broad cheeks; muscles curved about the jaws; muscles worked delicately along the club of a nose. The chin was just one live, twitching muscle. Even the faint screwed lines at the eye-corners suggested muscle. And, withal, there lurked in the countenance a suggestion of ingenuousness. The man looked like a bland and formidable baby. He looked even more like a puma.
With a rhythmical motion of arms and hands he came forward, performed a spreading bow of welcome, and drew back, putting his hand to his brow, as if in concentration of thought. Marjorie Blair felt an unholy desire to laugh. She glanced at Professor Kent, and, to her surprise, found him exhibiting every evidence of discomposure. He fidgeted, fanned himself with his hat, mopped his brow and palpably flinched under the solemn regard of the mage.
“Stupid of me,” he muttered, in apology. “Gets on one’s nerves, you know. Awesome, and all that sort of thing, fussing with the stars.”
Preston Jax bestowed a patronizing smile upon his visitor. Protectiveness, benign and assured, radiated from him.