“Some other time,” replied Ulrich, repellently.  Good fortune always comes in good time, and to know ill-luck in advance, is a misfortune I should think.”

“I can read the past, too.”

Ulrich started.  He must learn what his rival’s companion knew of his former life, so he answered quickly, “Well, for aught I care, begin.”

“Gladly, gladly, but when I look into the past, I must be alone with the questioner.  Be kind enough to give Zorrillo your company for quarter of an hour, Sergeant.”

“Don’t believe everything she tells you, and don’t look too deep into her eyes.  Come, Lelaps, my son!” cried the lansquenet, and did as he was requested.

The woman dealt the cards silently, with trembling hands, but Ulrich thought:  “Now she will try to sound me, and a thousand to one will do everything in her power to disgust me with desiring the Eletto’s baton.  That’s the way blockheads are caught.  We will keep to the past.”

His companion met this resolution halfway; for before she had dealt the last two rows, she rested her chin on the cards in her hands and, trying to meet his glance, asked: 

“How shall we begin?  Do you still remember your childhood?”

“Certainly.”

“Your father?”

“I have not seen him for a long time.  Don’t the cards tell you, that he is dead?”

“Dead, dead:—­of course he’s dead.  You had a mother too?”

“Yes, yes,” he answered impatiently; for he was unwilling to talk with this woman about his mother.

She shrank back a little, and said sadly:  “That sounds very harsh.  Do you no longer like to think of your mother?”

“What is that to you?”

“I must know.”

“No, what concerns my mother is....I will—­is too good for juggling.”

“Oh,” she said, looking at him with a glance from which he shrank.  Then she silently laid down the last cards, and asked:  “Do you want to hear anything about a sweetheart?”

“I have none.  But how you look at me!  Have you grown tired of Zorrillo?  I am ill-suited for a gallant.”

She shuddered slightly.  Her bright face had again grown old, so old and weary that he pitied her.  But she soon regained her composure, and continued: 

“What are you saying?  Ask the questions yourself now, if you please.”

“Where is my native place?”

“A wooded, mountainous region in Germany.”

“Ah, ha! and what do you know of my father?”

“You look like him, there is an astonishing resemblance in the forehead and eyes; his voice, too, was exactly like yours.”

“A chip of the old block.”

“Well, well.  I see Adam before me....”

“Adam?” asked Ulrich, and the blood left his cheeks.

“Yes, his name was Adam,” she continued more boldly, with increasing vivacity:  “there he stands.  He wears a smith’s apron, a small leather cap rests on his fair hair.  Auriculas and balsams stand in the bow-window.  A roan horse is being shod in the market-place below.”