I was telling you anything new, chevalier. It appeared
to me that my letter would leave you no doubt as to the desire I felt of
seeing you."

"This desire, which I only admit because you confess it, and I am too
gallant to contradict you--had it not made you promise in your letter
more than is in your power to keep?"

"Make a trial of my science; that will give you a test of my power."

"Oh, mon Dieu! I will confine myself to the simplest thing. You say you
are acquainted with the past, the present and the future. Tell me my
fortune."

"Nothing easier; give me your hand."

D'Harmental did what was asked of him.

"Sir," said the stranger, after a moment's examination, "I see very
legibly written by the direction of the 'adducta,' and by the
arrangement of the longitudinal lines of the palm, five words, in which
are included the history of your life. These words are, courage,
ambition, disappointment, love, and treason."

"Peste!" interrupted the chevalier, "I did not know that the genii
studied anatomy so deeply, and were obliged to take their degrees like a
Bachelor of Salamanca!"

"Genii know all that men know, and many other things besides,
chevalier."

"Well, then, what mean these words, at once so sonorous and so opposite?
and what do they teach you of me in the past, my very learned genius?"

"They teach me that it is by your courage alone that you gained the rank
of colonel, which you occupied in the army in Flanders; that this rank
awakened your ambition; that this ambition has been followed by a
disappointment; that you hoped to console yourself for this
disappointment by love; but that love, like fortune, is subject to
treachery, and that you have been betrayed."

"Not bad," said the chevalier; "and the Sybil of Cuma could not have got
out of it better. A little vague, as in all horoscopes, but a great fund
of truth, nevertheless. Let us come to the present, beautiful mask."

"The present, chevalier? Let us speak softly of it, for it smells
terribly of the Bastille."

The chevalier started in spite of himself, for he believed that no one
except the actors who had played a part in it could know his adventure
of the morning.

"There are at this hour," continued the stranger, "two brave gentlemen
lying sadly in their beds, while we chat gayly at the ball; and that
because a certain Chevalier d'Harmental, a great listener at doors, did
not remember a hemistich of Virgil."

"And what is this hem