The room was as quiet as a padded cell, full of a soft, velvety blackness, except where the single drop-lamp lighted up the couch. Ordinarily the place was, in its strange dark emptiness, a restful, comforting retreat. Now it imprisoned him. Above his head the great ring of embroidered zodiacal signs shone with a golden luster. They were the symbols of the mysterious dignity of the past, of the dark ages of thought, of priestcraft and secret wisdom of the blind centuries that had gone. But, a modern, incongruously set about with such medieval relics, he felt for the first time, undignified. In their time these emblems had represented all that existed of knowledge. Now, to him they stood for all that was left of ignorance and superstition; and it was upon such instruments he played. He read palms perfunctorily that Saturday. He seemed to hear his own voice all the while, and some dissociated function of his mind scoffed continually at his chicanery. It was the same old formula: "You are not understood by those about you. You crave sympathy, and it is refused. You are extraordinarily sensitive, but when you are most hurt you often say nothing. You have an intuitive knowledge of people. You have a wonderful power of appreciation and criticism. People confide in you. You are impulsive, but your instinct is usually sure"—the same professional, easy rigamarole, colored with what hints his quick eyes gave him or his flagging imagination suggested. Women listened avidly, drinking in every word. How could he help telling them what they loved so to hear? They asked questions so suggestive that a child might have answered. They prolonged the discussion of themselves, obviously enjoying his apparent interest. He caught himself again and again playing with their credulity, their susceptibility, and hated himself for it. They lingered, smiling self-consciously, and he delayed them with a look. In very perversity, he began deliberately to flatter their vanity in order to see to what inordinate pitch of conceit their minds would rise. He affected indifference, and even scorn—they followed after him still more eagerly. He grew, at last, almost savagely critical, an instinct of cruelty aroused by such complacent, egregious egoism. They fawned on him, like spaniels under the lash.