In her present high-strung condition, her apprehension made her a little faint for a moment. The centrepiece of orchids and roses seemed a vague mass of rather oppressive color and perfume. The women's faces and necks looked like reddish blobs with flashes of light where the jewels came. The broad white expanse of the men's shirt fronts alone retained a certain steadiness. Hastily she grasped her glass of champagne and drained it dry. It was the first wine she had tasted that night, and it braced her nerves at once. Fortunately no one observed her paleness, for everybody's attention was fixed upon Miss Wabash as she bent over Flint's open palm. "A surprising hand!" that young lady was saying; "really in some ways quite the most interesting I ever came across. I must report it to Chiro. The fingers very pointed--that ought to indicate idealism, but the knots on the joints imply practical critical sense. It looks as though the mind were always grasping at some ideal and were held back by the critical faculty." "Don't blink your points, Mamie!" called out the host, facetiously. At this allusion to sporting reminiscences, all the men laughed, but the women rather resented the interruption, as a frivolous treatment of a serious subject. "You have learned your profession thoroughly," said Flint, coloring a little in spite of himself. "I shall begin to be afraid of you in earnest, if you are so discerning." "Oh, I have only begun!" answered Miss Wabash, kindled by success to greater vivacity. "That thumb shows marked firmness (see, I can scarcely bend it back at all); perhaps, if I knew you better, I should say obstinacy." Every one laughed. "The fingers," she went on, "show more sensitiveness; and the mounds--oh, those mean a great deal! Mars is firm and prominent--what you undertake you will carry through, if it kills you and everybody else." "What a fellow to buy on margin!" said the broker. "He doesn't seem to have succeeded in getting married for all his perseverance," laughed Mr. Graham. Winifred, in spite of her emotion, found time to reflect on the vulgarity of the phrase, and shivered a little. Flint colored, though he held his hand quite steady. "Perhaps he'll buy her sixty," chuckled the broker, pleased with his technical wit. "He'd better hurry up," said Miss Wabash, "for his life-line is short. He's had experiences though. May I tell them, Mr. Flint?" "I give you permission." "Well, then, you were in love once a long time ago, but there were reasons why you couldn't marry, and so you gave up the affair and have never really cared for any one since; but two or three women have been desperately in love with you." "Mademoiselle, respect the seal of the confessional!" said Flint, smiling, but drawing away his hand with a quick instinctive motion which did not escape Winifred.