“Qui est la?” and then before either of them could answer, the woman had drawn back:  a moment later they heard her heavy progress down the creaky stairs of her dwelling.

At last she came out into the courtyard, unlocked the iron gate, and curtly motioned to the two ladies to follow her.

“We have come to see Madame Cagliostra,” said Sylvia timidly.  She took this stout, untidily-dressed woman for the fortune-teller’s servant.

“Madame Cagliostra, at your service!” The woman turned round, her face breaking into a broad smile.  She evidently liked the sound of her peculiar name.

They followed her up a dark staircase into a curious little sitting-room.  It was scrupulously clean, but about it hung the faint odour which the French eloquently describe as “shut in,” and even on this beautiful hot day the windows were tightly closed.

On the red walls hung various drawings of hands, of hearts, and of heads, and over the plain mantelpiece was a really fine pastel portrait of a man, in eighteenth century dress and powdered hair.

“My ancestor, Count Cagliostro, ladies!” exclaimed the fat little woman proudly.  “As you will soon see, if you have, as I venture to suppose, come to consult me, I have inherited the great gifts which made Count Cagliostro famous.”  She waited a moment.  “What is it you desire of me?  Do you wish for the Grand Jeu?  Or do you prefer the Crystal?”

Madame Cagliostra gave a shrewd, measuring glance at the two young women standing before her.  She was wondering how much they were good for.

“No doubt you have been told,” she said suddenly, “that my fee is five francs.  But if you require the Grand Jeu it will be ten francs.  Come, ladies, make up your minds; I will give you both the Grand Jeu for fifteen francs!”

Sylvia Bailey’s lip quivered; she felt a wild wish to burst out laughing.  It was all so absurd; this funny queer house; this odd, stuffy, empty-looking room; and this vulgar, common-looking woman asserting that she was descended from the famous Count Cagliostro!  And then, to crown everything, the naive, rather pathetic, attempt to get an extra five francs out of them.

But Sylvia was a very kindly, happy-natured creature, and she would not have hurt the feelings of even a Madame Cagliostra for the world.

She looked at her friend questioningly.  Would it not be better just to give the woman five francs and go away?  They surely could not expect to hear anything of any value from such a person.  She was evidently a fraud!

But Anna Wolsky was staring at Madame Cagliostra with a serious look.

“Very well,” she exclaimed, in her rather indifferent French.  “Very well!  We will both take the Grand Jeu at fifteen francs the two.”

She turned and smiled at Sylvia.  “It will be,” she said, quaintly, and in English, “my ‘treat,’ dear friend.”  And then, as Sylvia shook her head decidedly—­there were often these little contests of generosity between the two women—­she added rather sharply,