He smiled again. "My name is Aristide," he said, and seemed to be waiting for a sensation. The ladies looked at one another puzzled. Only Mme de Breteuil frowned a moment, and then clapped her hands. "I have it—ah, Monsieur Aristide, it is so many years ago. I think we won’t say how many, but all Paris talked about you then. They called you the Sorcerer, and one’s priest scolded one soundly if one so much as mentioned your name." "Yes," said the old man with a nod. "Well, you have forgotten it, I daresay, but I came to see you then, I and my sister-in-law, Jeanne de Breteuil. In those days the future interested me enormously, but when I got into the room, and thought that perhaps I should see the devil, I was scared to death; and as to Jeanne, she pinched me black and blue. There was a pool of ink, and a child who saw pictures in it." "Oh, but how delightful," exclaimed Julie de Labédoyère. "Not at all, my dear, it was most alarming." "But what did he tell you?" The old lady bridled a little. "Oh, a number of things that would interest nobody now, though at the time they were extremely absorbing. But one thing you told me, Monsieur, and that was that I should die in a foreign land, and I assure you I find it a vastly consoling prophecy at present." "It is true," said Aristide, fixing his blue eyes upon her. "To be sure," she continued, "you told Jeanne she would have three husbands, and a child by each of them, all of which came most punctually to pass; but, Monsieur, I fear now that Jeanne will have my prophecy as well as her own, since she had the sense to leave France two years ago when it was still possible, and I was foolish enough to stay here." The old man shook his head and leaned back again, closing his eyes. "What is the future to us now?" said Mme de Vieuxmesnil in a low voice. "It holds nothing." "Are you so sure?" asked Aristide, and she started, turning a little paler, but Mme de Labédoyère turned on him with vivacity. "Oh, but can you really tell the future?" she asked. "When there is a future to tell," he said, stroking his white beard with a thin transparent hand, and his eyes rested curiously upon her as he spoke. Something in their expression made old Mme de Breteuil shiver a little. "Even now he frightens me," she whispered to Aline, but Julie de Labédoyère had clasped her hands. "Oh, but how ravishing," she exclaimed. "Tell us then, Monsieur, tell us all our futures. I am ready to die of dulness, and so I am sure are these ladies. It will really be a deed of charity if you will amuse us for an hour." "The future is not always amusing," said Aristide with a slight chilly smile. "Also," he added after a pause, "there is no child here. I need one to read the visions in the pool of ink." "The gaoler has a tribe of children," said Mme de Labédoyère eagerly. "I have a little money. If I made him a present he would send us one." "It must be a young child, under seven years old." "But why?"