ver it might be. Still, I didn't exactly look
forward to it. Soon after I had reached the age of twenty-five, I
began to feel uncomfortable. The thing might be going to happen at any
moment. In palmistry, you know, it is impossible to pin an event down
hard and fast to one year. This particular event was to be when I was
ABOUT twenty-six; it mightn't be till I was twenty-seven; it might be
while I was only twenty-five.

"And I used to tell myself it mightn't be at all. My reason rebelled
against the whole notion of palmistry, just as yours does. I despised
my faith in the thing, just as you despise yours. I used to try not to
be so ridiculously careful as I was whenever I crossed a street. I
lived in London at that time. Motor-cars had not yet come in,
but--what hours, all told, I must have spent standing on curbs, very
circumspect, very lamentable! It was a pity, I suppose, that I had no
definite occupation--something to take me out of myself. I was one of
the victims of private means. There came a time when I drove in
four-wheelers rather than in hansoms, and was doubtful of
four-wheelers. Oh, I assure you, I was very lamentable indeed.

"If a railway-journey could be avoided, I avoided it. My uncle had a
place in Hampshire. I was very fond of him and of his wife. Theirs
was the only house I ever went to stay in now. I was there for a week
in November, not long after my twenty-seventh birthday. There were
other people staying there, and at the end of the week we all traveled
back to London together. There were six of us in the carriage: Colonel
Elbourn and his wife and their daughter, a girl of seventeen; and
another married couple, the Bretts. I had been at Winchester with
Brett, but had hardly seen him since that time. He was in the Indian
Civil, and was home on leave. He was sailing for India next week. His
wife was to remain in England for some months, and then join him out
there. They had been married five years. She was now just twenty-four
years old. He told me that this was her age. The Elbourns I had never
met before. They were charming people. We had all been very happy
together. The only trouble had been that on the last night, at dinner,
my uncle asked me if I still went in for 'the Gipsy business,' as he
always called it; and of course the three ladies were immensely
excited, and implored me to 'do' their hands. I told them it was all
nonsense, I said I had forgotten all I