“One half-duro—a quarter each,” he insists, and Aleck is about to comply when the eccentric actor steps in front and proceeds to mesmerize the youth.
“Ten cents,” he mutters feebly, but Claude only increases his mysterious passes, and at length the Arab youth throws up the sponge.
“Great is Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet. Enter taleb, I beg,” he says hastily, as if desirous of being rid of an incubus.
So they pass in, Aleck Craig never dreaming what an influence this accidental discovery of a new curiosity will have upon his future. A dozen persons are in the room, and one by one they interview the veiled woman on the little stage, who looks into the palm and reads both the past and the future.
“Look!” says Wycherley quickly; “don’t you recognize the man seated there?”
“Jove! it’s the pasha himself. Do you suppose our being here has anything to do with his presence?”
“Not at all. He was here when we came, and I know the man well enough to understand that he has some motive for his visit.”
“Then let’s watch the game.”
“Nothing pleases me better. Notice the fortune teller, Aleck; did I speak correctly?”
“As near as I can say—yes, I should judge that she is a fine looking woman, and, like the most of her sex, a coquette.”