"Yes, somehow I do. Why? I haven't the slightest notion. I can give myself all sorts of reasons for laughing it to scorn. My common sense utterly rejects it. Of course the shape of the hand means something, is more or less an index of character. But the idea that my past and future are neatly mapped out on my palms—" I shrugged my shoulders.
"You don't like that idea?" asked Laider in his gentle, rather academic voice.
"I only say it's a grotesque idea."
"Yet you do believe in it?"
"I've a grotesque belief in it, yes."
"Are you sure your reason for calling this idea 'grotesque' isn't merely that you dislike it?"
"Well," I said, with the thrilling hope that he was a companion in absurdity, "doesn't it seem grotesque to you?"
"It seems strange."
"You believe in it?"
"Oh, absolutely."