"They're still waiting to go out," answered Barbara.
"And you want to know? I can only tell you, if you tell me first; and you can only tell me, if you know. The lines of life are interlocked. If their lines cross yours, then you know; but, if they are separated.... You understand? It is not likely that you know anything of a man at the other end of the world, whom you have never met, unless it has been ordained that you are to meet him. That is reasonable."
She lighted another cigarette and sat down, looking at Barbara with no apparent interest.
"You want to find out about some one whose life has crossed yours?" she resumed carelessly, and her indifference was more disconcerting than either her stereotyped mysticism or the hostility which she had shewn when Barbara came into the room.
"I want to find out generally," answered Barbara. "All about myself. What I've done and what I'm doing now doesn't matter, but I want to know about the future."
Mrs. Savage laughed and shook her head.
"I know your name," she said. "I know who you are, but I know very little about you. I imagine that your life has been very happy, you have had everything to make it happy. Perhaps it will not always be happy. If you learned that you were going to be very ill or die——"
"I've got to die some time. When I'm seventy-five, I shall know that I'm going to die very soon, because hardly any one lives longer than that. I'm twenty-two now, and I don't in the least mind knowing that I can't live for more than about another fifty years."
"But, if it were five years? I do not know, of course."
"I'd sooner face it, I think."