PART I A D AM E N E V A IR R E , Seer. Palmist, Reader, was very tired— too tired to read the Life, Head,
teasing for "just one more ride”; bottles being uncorked in the darkness behind her tent; the inane spluttering of drunken men and women as the hour grew late; feet scraping on the sidewalks, scraping, scrap ing past her door. ★ * * * Af one o’clock she would close up. Her aching feet would drag her tired body through the straggling crowd down a side street to the hotel. On the way, she would pass the bright lights of the open-air dance floor with its seething sea of dancers—gay young people—and old—virtue caught in the whirl of pleasure, the fan of passion blowing hot against it, being swirled fran? tically, disappearing into nothingness; sweet incense blown away forever. She knew the direful meaning of it all, and hated it with bitter hatred. Through the years that fan had blown its hot, per fumed breath upon the little circle of girls who had once been her most intimate friends; and one by one, they had all been whirled away. They were nothing now. Nothing! Only she had escaped. Escaped to— this! Madame Nevairre, famous Seer, Palmist, Reader, liar! She leaned forward, laid her own left hand on the table, its dainty palm upward, and laid the delicate finger tips of her right hand upon its soft cushions at the base of the thumb and lingers, cushions that in palmistry were called respectively, Mount of Affection, Ambition, Success, Art, Gaiety. No, she was. not to blame for her many faults, she told herself, for the left hand was the hereditary hand, and it revealed the character weaknesses handed down from one's ancestors. She traced the course of the Head Line from below the Mount of
Ambition just above the thumb joint all the way across the hand to the Mount of Imagination—no, not 'all the way across. For it stopped abruptly at the Fate Line, was deflected intb its downward course to ward the "Bracelets" of the wrist. The reading was "Bad Judgment” or “Adverse Circumstances.” And the reading seemed to be true! There had been nothing but adverse cir cumstances for her for years, followed or preceded by faulty decisions. Losing Gor don Harrington was the most unfortunate thing that had ever happened to her—or ever could happen. She would like to read Gordon’s palm—Gordon's and Rita’s. It was Rita who had stolen him away from her last winter. And her Life Line! There was a break in its course around the base of the thumb. There had been an accident, or was going to be one! Yet in spite of bad judgment, her twenty-four years had been free from accidents, serious ones at any rate. Later in life, perhaps! Or it might come any time, now. She had believed that for years, ever since her first reading in Madame Karen’s booth at the county fair when she was only sixteen. Gordon! Perhaps that was the reason she was despondent tonight, utterly lonely. This was Gordon’s home town. She had sent letters to him here, dozens of them, scores perhaps. She had heard he was in business here even now, manager in his father’s store. She had heard also that he was attending summer school in Ames, working toward a Master’s degree. At any rate, she had not seen him today. It seemed incredible that the Gale Bar- tone Shows in their meanderings across the Middle West should make a one-night stop
Heart, and Fate Lines in any more hands tonight. She sighed, leaned back wearily, her eyes seeing and yet not seeing the blue incense which rose slowly from the image of Buddha on the tablé in front of her. The incense was caught in the whirl of an electric fan and swirled in frantic cir cles about the canvas room, was pushed up and out through the waving flaps at the top of the tent’s side walls, and through the red and black satin curtains at the en trance. From the eye sockets of a yawning, miniature human skull, purple incense belched upward, mingled with the blue, was also caught in the swirling air from the fan and tossed in ever-widening circles. It was sickening to have to breathe incense from eight at night until one in the morning every night in the year—well, every night all summer, at any rate. County fairs. Legion picnics. Carnivals. Harvest festivals. Hurried, one-night stops in dumpy little towns. She was beginning to tire °f it—the pounding tin-pan music of the merry-go-round; the hawking and bark ing from the concession booths and stands; the Ferris wheel groaning and grinding on the Midway; blatant, boastful challenges to “Send out a man to wrestle with me" from the athletic tent; the shameless bawl- ings of the barker from the strip-tease tent; people, people, people; laughing, screaming, coughing, jesting, jostling against each other; friends meeting friends; children
Copyright, 1939, by Paul Hutchens. All rightsresecved. Drawing by Ransom Marvin.
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