The Seer took it from him, hardly touching it perceptibly. “That’s not a heart!” he answered in a sharp voice, without a second’s hesitation; “that’s the Jack of Spades! You’re right as to the general shape, but you’ve neglected the handle.” He turned it up as he spoke. The Knave of Spades indeed it was. Florian corrected him solemnly. “In good English society,” he murmured, still polite and still inscrutable, “we say Knave, not Jack. Remember that in future. To call it a Jack’s an odious vulgarism. I merely mention this fact because I notice how cleverly you’ve managed to acquire the exact little tricks of accent and manner which are sure to take with an English audience. I should be sorry to think a man of your brains, and a man of your moral character—positive or negative—should be thought the less of in this town of London for so very unimportant a matter of detail.” “Thank you,” the Seer responded quietly, with another searching look. “I believe, Mr Florian Wood, we two understand each other. But mind you”—and he looked very wise and cunning—“I didn’t pass my finger over the cards at Mrs Palmer’s.” “So I saw,” Florian replied, with unabated good-humour. “But I looked at them close—and I noticed they were squeezers. What’s more, I observed you took them always by the left-hand corner (which was the right hand, upside down) whenever they were passed to you. That gave me the clue. I saw you could read, with one touch of your finger, the number and suit marked small in the corner. I recognised how you did it, though I couldn’t come near it myself. Your sense of touch must be something simply exquisite.” The American’s mouth curled gently at the corners. Those words restored his confidence. He took up a casual book from the table at his side—’twas the first edition of Andrew Lang’s “Ballades in Blue China”—for Florian, as a man of taste, adored first editions. “Look here,” the Seer said, carelessly. He turned it face downwards and opened it at random. Then, passing one finger almost imperceptibly over the face of a page, he began to read, as fast as the human voice can go, the very first verses he chanced to light upon. “BALLADE OF PRIMITIVE MAN.” “He lived in a cave by the seas; He lived upon oysters and foes; But his list of forbidden degrees An extensive morality shews. Geological evidence goes To prove he had never a pan, But he shaved with a shell when he chose. ’Twas the manner of Primitive Man.”