hey
called it mind reading. During the day, at the house of Vance and his
wife, the girl, as "Vera, the Medium," furnished to all comers memories
of the past or news of the future. In their profession, in all of its
branches, the man and the girl were past masters. They knew it from the
A, B, C of the dream book to the post-graduate work of projecting from a
cabinet the spirits of the dead. As the occasion offered and paid
best, they were mind readers, clairvoyants, materializing mediums, test
mediums. From them, a pack of cards, a crystal globe, the lines of the
human hand, held no secrets. They found lost articles, cast horoscopes,
gave advice in affairs of the heart, of business and speculation,
uttered warnings of journeys over seas and against a smooth-shaven
stranger. They even stooped to foretell earthquakes, or caused to drop
fluttering from the ceiling a letter straight from the Himalayas. Among
those who are the gypsies of the cities, they were the aristocrats of
their calling, and to them that calling was as legitimate a business as
is, to the roadside gypsy, the swapping of horses. The fore-parents
of each had followed that same calling, and to the children it was
commonplace and matter-of-fact. It held no adventure, no moral obloquy.

"Prof." Paul Vance was a young man of under forty years. He looked like
a fox. He had red eyes, alert and cunning, a long, sharp-pointed nose,
a pointed red beard, and red eyebrows that slanted upward. His hair,
standing erect in a pompadour, and his uplifted eyebrows gave him the
watchful look of the fox when he hears suddenly the hound baying in
pursuit. But no one had ever successfully pursued Vance. No one had ever
driven him into a corner from which, either pleasantly, or with raging
indignation, he was not able to free himself. Seven years before he had
disloyally married out of the "profession" and for no other reason than
that he was in love with the woman he married. She had come to seek
advice from the spirit world in regard to taking a second husband. After
several visits the spirit world had advised Vance to advise her to marry
Vance.

She did so, and though the man was still in love with his wife, he had
not found her, in his work, the assistance he had hoped she might
be. She still was a "believer"; in the technical vernacular of her
husband--"a dope." Not even the intimate knowledge she had gained
behind the scenes could persuade her that Paul, her husband, was