“And have you lost it now?”

“It has been sadly shaken.”

“You can at least show me how you practice the art, even if you have lost your faith in it.  I too have lost a faith; but we must live.  What are these cards for?”

“If you wish me to show you, you may shuffle and cut them, but I would rather tell your fortune by your hand, for I have more faith in palmistry than in cards.”

He extended his hand; she took it, and with her right forefinger began to trace the lines.  Her gaze had that intensity with which a little child peers into the mechanism of a watch or an astronomer into the depths of space.

A thrill of emotion shot through the frame of the Quaker at the touch of those delicate and beautiful fingers.

The contrast between his own hands and hers was marked enough to be almost ridiculous.  Hers were tiny, soft and white.  His were large, brown and calloused.  He thought to himself, “It is as if two little white mice were playing about an enormous trap which in a moment may seize them.”

Neither of them, spoke.  The delicate finger of the gypsy moved over the lines of the palm like that of a little school-girl over the pages of a primer.  They did not realize how dangerous was that proximity, nor how fatal that touch.  Through those two poles of Nature’s most powerful battery, the magnetic and mysterious current of love was passing.

“What do you see?” said David, at last.

“Shall I tell you?” she asked, lifting her eyes to his.

“If you please,” he said.

“I will do so if you wish; but if the story of your life is really written in the palm of your hands, it is sad indeed, and you would be happier if you knew it not.”

“But it is not written there.  I do not believe it, nor do you.”

“Let us hope that it is not,” she answered, and began the following monologue in a low musical monotone: 

“Marked as it is with the signs of toil, this hand has still retained all those characteristics that an artist would choose as a model.  It is perfect in its form.  The palm is of medium size, the fingers without knots, the third phalanges are all long and pointed, and the thumb is beautifully shaped.  Whoever possesses a hand like this must be guided by ideals.  He is a worshiper of the sublime and beautiful.  He disdains small achievements, embarks enthusiastically upon forlorn hopes, and is spurred to victory by the fervor of his desires.

“See this thumb!  How finely it is pointed.  The first phalanx is short, and indicates that above all other things he is a man of heart and will be dominated by his affections.  He will yield to temptations, perhaps; but the second phalanx is long and reveals a power of reason and logic which will probably triumph at last.”

Not a single word of all this had David heard.  Her voice sounded to him like the low droning of bees in a meadow, and he had been watching the movements of her fingers, as he used to watch the dartings of the minnows in the pools of the brook which ran through his farm.