"But you—you don't believe it?" stammered the crestfallen Mr. Foss.
Mrs. Dowson cast a stealthy glance at her daughter. "Its wonderful 'ow some o' those fortune-tellers can see into the future," she said, shaking her head.
"Ah!" said her husband, with a confirmatory nod. "Wonderful is no name for it. I 'ad my fortune told once when I was a boy, and she told me I should marry the prettiest, and the nicest, and the sweetest-tempered gal in Poplar."
Mr. Foss, with a triumphant smile, barely waited for him to finish. "There you—" he began, and stopped suddenly.
"What was you about to remark?" inquired Mrs. Dowson, icily.
"I was going to say," replied Mr. Foss—"I was going to say—I 'ad just got it on the tip o' my tongue to say, 'There you—you—you 'ad all the luck, Mr. Dowson.'"
He edged his chair a little nearer to Flora; but there was a chilliness in the atmosphere against which his high spirits strove in vain. Mr. Dowson remembered other predictions which had come true, notably the case of one man who, learning that he was to come in for a legacy, gave up a two-pound-a-week job, and did actually come in for twenty pounds and a bird-cage seven years afterwards.