Her hand, it appeared, was of a mixed type, neither square nor conic, with long fingers, inclined to be psychic. He remarked the extraordinary sensitiveness denoted by their cushioned tips. Nails, healthy and oval; knuckles indicating a good sense of order in mental and physical life. She was, in short, of strong, vigorous mentality, well-balanced, artistic, generous, liberal; but (he referred to the Mount of Jupiter) with a tendency to be a looker-on rather than a sharer in the ordinary social pleasures of life. Saturn, developed more toward the finger, gave her a slightly melancholy temperament; Apollo showed a great appreciation of the beautiful in nature, with no little critical knowledge of art; Mercury was less developed, and implied a lack of humor; Venus betrayed a well-controlled but warm feeling; it was soft—she was, consequently, easily moved. Her thumb was wilful rather than logical, her fingers suggested respectively, pride, perception, self-respect, morbidity, love of the beautiful as distinguished from the ornamental, tact. He had thrown himself into a pose so habitual as to become almost unconscious, though it was keyed to the theatrical pitch of his picturesque appearance and surroundings. The girl’s expression showed, to his alert eye, a slight disappointment at the conventionality of his remarks. This spurred him to more originality and definiteness. He tossed his hair back with one hand in a quick gesture and turned to the lines in her palm, examining them first with a magnifying glass and then tracing them with an ivory stylus. Her eyes were fixed upon his, as if she were more interested in the manner than the matter of his task. "You are the sort of person," he said, "who is, in a certain sense, egoistic. That is, after a criticism of any one, you would immediately ask yourself, ’Would I not have done the same thing, under the same circumstances?’ You’re stupendously frank—you’d own up to anything, any faults you thought you possessed; you’d even exaggerate a jestingly ignoble confession of motives because you hate hypocrisy so much in others. You are eminently fair and just, as you are generous. You have none of the ordinary feminine arts of coquetry. If you liked a man you would say so frankly." It was typical of Granthope’s enthusiasm for his game that he dared thus play it so boldly with his cards face up upon the table. His visitor began to show more interest; it was evident that she appreciated the ingeniousness of his phrasing. Her lip curved into a dainty smile. Her eyes gleamed slyly, then withdrew their fire.