No girl I knew, not even
Pam herself, who is always having adventures, could ever have had one as
good as this. If only I need not miss it!
"It would take no more than five minutes," she pleaded in her queer
French, which was barely understandable, and evidently not the tongue in
which she was most at home.
"Well, then," I said, hastily calculating that it was no more than ten
minutes since Lady Turnour and Sir Samuel left me, and that the water
for their punch couldn't possibly have begun to boil yet. "Well, then,
perhaps I might have five minutes' fortune, if it doesn't cost too much;
but I'm very poor--poorer than you, maybe."
"That cannot be, for then you would have less than nothing," said the
old woman, cackling again. "But it is your company I like to have, more
than your money. I have been waiting here a long time, and I am dull. No
fortune can be expected to come true, however, unless the teller's hand
be crossed with silver, otherwise I might give it you for nothing. But a
two-franc piece--"
"I think I have as much as that," I cut her short, as she paused on the
hint; and deciding not to ask her, as I felt inclined, to come to the
upper room lest we should be interrupted, I went down the remaining five
or six high steps, and got out my purse under a long, straight rod of
gray light.
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