It really was dreadfully stuffy!
Madame Cagliostra had gone to a sideboard from which she was taking two
packs of exceedingly dirty, queer-looking cards. They were the famous
Taro cards, but Sylvia did not know that.
When the fortune-teller was asked to open the window, she shook her head
decidedly.
"No, no!" she said. "It would dissipate the influences. I cannot do that!
On the contrary, the curtains should be drawn close, and if the ladies
will permit of it I will light my lamp."
Even as she spoke she was jerking the thick curtains closely together;
she even pinned them across so that no ray of the bright sunlight outside
could penetrate into the room.
For a few moments they were in complete darkness, and Sylvia felt a
queer, eerie sensation of fear, but this soon passed away as the
lamp--the "_Suspension_," as Madame Cagliostra proudly called it--was
lit.
When her lamp was well alight, the soothsayer drew three chairs up to the
round table, and motioned the two strangers to sit down.
"You will take my friend first," said Anna Wolsky, imperiously; and then,
to Sylvia, she said, in English, "Would you rather I went away, dear? I
could wait on the staircase till you were ready for me to come back.
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