Captain Fane was wrong in one suspicion: Lady Bell did not seek adventures. On the contrary, when she saw the bold licence to which they tended, she shrank back from them; she had very soon ceased to play the rustic fortune-teller, as she had begun to play it with innocent spirit and pains. She was ashamed of thinking of acting where hardly any one else acted. CHAPTER XVII. THE “COMMON DOMINO.” Lady Bell continued, however, to pay the penalty for the choice of a character, by being accosted on the part of numerous Indian conjurers, sailors, and Roman emperors, all uniting in the demand that she should tell them their fortunes. Neither was the demand made in formal histrionic phrase, but in free and easy modern language, spoken by voices teasingly familiar to her. But Lady Bell was so bewildered and vexed because all her boasted penetration had failed her, that not having succeeded in detecting the one, she would not take the trouble to identify the many. She guessed that some of these masquers were Sir George Waring, Lord Boscobel, Colonel Selby; but she did not care to come to a decision. What was it to her who they were? The gentlemen were not so indifferent or irresolute about the secret of the graceful little fortune-teller. Fine gentlemen though they were, and at their own ball, they were importunate and aggressive, until their advances became irksome and offensive to Lady Bell. She grew sick of them, and the whole riotous company, and wished herself with all her heart well out of it—out of town—back to her peaceful Summerhill, with her calm, beneficent Mrs. Sundon. Lady Bell absolutely declined doing any more palmistry, and put off the pressing claimants on her powers with as much determination as she could summon to her aid on the spur of the moment. “No, no, sirs, the stars are not in the ascendant,” she said, with a very sincere sigh, “the cards won’t shuffle. You must go to another fortune-teller.” “To no other, most unpropitious Sybil,” asserted one voice. “Let me shuffle your cards,” suggested another, offering to take the tools of Lady Bell’s trade for the night out of her hands. “I’ll cross your hand with gold, my girl,” said a third, and at the same time presumed to seize Lady Bell’s disengaged hand. Lady Bell was roused to a more energetic renunciation of her character. “I won’t be bribed. See here!” she cried. And raising the spread-out pack of cards, she scattered them far and near. Her action was partly misunderstood, and some of her followers stopped to pick up the cards, as Lady Bell had hoped they would. She moved on directly, but in the little scuffle she had already been separated from her party. For the moment the crowd had closed in between them, and Lady Bell found herself alone in her disguise, exposed to rougher horse-play.