French girls clamored for it, and their sweethearts bid against
each other recklessly. Marie wanted it, too, and she kept making
signals to Frank, which he took a sour pleasure in disregarding.
He didn't see the use of making a fuss over a fellow just because
he was dressed like a clown. When the turquoise went to Malvina
Sauvage, the French banker's daughter, Marie shrugged her shoulders
and betook herself to her little tent of shawls, where she began
to shuffle her cards by the light of a tallow candle, calling out,
"Fortunes, fortunes!"

The young priest, Father Duchesne, went first to have his fortune
read. Marie took his long white hand, looked at it, and then
began to run off her cards. "I see a long journey across water for
you, Father. You will go to a town all cut up by water; built on
islands, it seems to be, with rivers and green fields all about.
And you will visit an old lady with a white cap and gold hoops in
her ears, and you will be very happy there."

"Mais, oui," said the priest, with a melancholy smile. "C'est
L'Isle-Adam, chez ma mere. Vous etes tres savante, ma fille." He
patted her yellow turban, calling, "Venez donc, mes garcons! Il
y a ici une veritable clairvoyante!"

Marie was clever at fortune-telling, indulging in a light irony
that amused the crowd. She told old Brunot, the miser, that he
would lose all his money, marry a girl of sixteen, and live happily
on a crust. Sholte, the fat Russian boy, who lived for his stomach,
was to be disappointed in love, grow thin, and shoot himself from
despondency. Amedee was to have twenty children, and nineteen of
them were to be girls. Amedee slapped Frank on the back and asked
him why he didn't see what the fortune-teller would promise him.
But Frank shook off his friendly hand and grunted, "She tell my
fortune long ago; bad enough!" Then he withdrew to a corner and
sat glowering at his wife.

Frank's case was all the more painful because he had no one
in particular to fix his jealousy upon. Sometimes he could have
thanked the man who would bring him evidence against his wife.
He had discharged a good farm-boy, Jan Smirka, because he thought
Marie was fond of him; but she had not seemed to miss Jan when
he was gone, and she had been just as kind to the next boy. The
farm-hands would always do anything for Marie; Frank couldn't find
one so surly that he would not make an effort to please her. At
the bottom of his heart Frank knew well enough that i