"I must beg you to go away, Mesdames," she muttered, faintly. "Five
francs is all I ask of you."
But Anna Wolsky was behaving in what appeared to Sylvia a very strange
manner. She walked round to where the fortune-teller was sitting.
"You saw something in the cards which you do not wish to tell me?" she
said imperiously. "I do not mind being told the truth. I am not a child."
"I swear I saw nothing!" cried the Frenchwoman angrily. "I am too ill to
see anything. The cards were to me perfectly blank!"
In the bright sunlight now pouring into the little room the soothsayer
looked ghastly, her skin had turned a greenish white.
"Mesdames, I beg you to excuse me," she said again. "If you do not wish
to give me the five francs, I will not exact any fee."
She pointed with a shaking finger to the door, and Sylvia put a
five-franc piece down on the table.
But before her visitors had quite groped their way to the end of the
short, steep staircase, they heard a cry.
"Mesdames!" then after a moment's pause, "Mesdames, I implore you to come
back!"
They looked at one another, and then Anna, putting her finger to her
lips, went back up the stairs, alone.
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