on the joints imply practical critical sense. It looks as
though the mind were always grasping at some ideal and were held back
by the critical faculty."

"Don't blink your points, Mamie!" called out the host, facetiously. At
this allusion to sporting reminiscences, all the men laughed, but the
women rather resented the interruption, as a frivolous treatment of a
serious subject.

"You have learned your profession thoroughly," said Flint, coloring a
little in spite of himself. "I shall begin to be afraid of you in
earnest, if you are so discerning."

"Oh, I have only begun!" answered Miss Wabash, kindled by success to
greater vivacity. "That thumb shows marked firmness (see, I can
scarcely bend it back at all); perhaps, if I knew you better, I should
say obstinacy."

Every one laughed.

"The fingers," she went on, "show more sensitiveness; and the
mounds--oh, those mean a great deal! Mars is firm and prominent--what
you undertake you will carry through, if it kills you and everybody
else."

"What a fellow to buy on margin!" said the broker.

"He doesn't seem to have succeeded in getting married for all his
perseverance," laughed Mr. Graham.

Winifred, in spite of her emotion, found time to reflect on the
vulgarity of the phrase, and shivered a little. Flint colored, though
he held his hand quite steady.

"Perhaps he'll buy her sixty," chuckled the broker, pleased with his
technical wit.

"He'd better hurry up," said Miss Wabash, "for his life-line is short.
He's had experiences though. May I tell them, Mr. Flint?"

"I give you permission."

"Well, then, you were in love once a long time ago, but there were
reasons why you couldn't marry, and so you gave up the affair and have
never really cared for any one since; but two or three women have been
desperately in love with you."

"Mademoiselle, respect the seal of the confessional!" said Flint,
smiling, but drawing away his hand with a quick instinctive motion
which did not escape Winifred.

"Ho! ho!" called out Graham, "perhaps there is more in palmistry than
I thought. Go on, Mamie, and give us the history of the Salvation Army
episode and the Hallelujah lassie!"

Flint cursed inwardly, cursed everything and almost everybody, himself
most of all. What was he here for? What if Graham _was_ the chief
stockholder in the "Trans-Continental," he was a coarse-grained
sensualist, with whom no gentleman should associate. (This estimate by
no means did Grah