With a rhythmical motion of arms and hands he came forward, performed a spreading bow of welcome, and drew back, putting his hand to his brow, as if in concentration of thought. Marjorie Blair felt an unholy desire to laugh. She glanced at Professor Kent, and, to her surprise, found him exhibiting every evidence of discomposure. He fidgeted, fanned himself with his hat, mopped his brow and palpably flinched under the solemn regard of the mage. “Stupid of me,” he muttered, in apology. “Gets on one’s nerves, you know. Awesome, and all that sort of thing, fussing with the stars.” Preston Jax bestowed a patronizing smile upon his visitor. Protectiveness, benign and assured, radiated from him. “Fear nothing,” said he. “The star forces respond to the master-will of him who comprehends them. Madam, the date, year, month and day of your birth, if you please?” “March 15th, 1889,” replied Mrs. Blair. Propelled by an unseen force, a celestial globe mounted on a nickeled standard, rolled forth. The Star-master spun it with a practised hand. Slowly and more slowly it turned, until, as it came to a stop, a ray of light, mysteriously appearing, focused on a constellation. “Yonder is your star,” declared the astrologist. “See how the aural light seeks it.” “Oh, I say!” murmured he of the monocle. “Weird, you know! Quite gets on one’s nerves. Quite!” “Sh-h-h-h!” reproved Preston Jax. “Silence is the fitting medium of the higher stellar mysteries. Madam, your life is a pathway between happiness and grief. Loss, like a speeding comet, has crossed it here. Happiness, like the soft moon glow, has beamed upon it, and will again beam, in fuller effulgence.” With beautifully modulated intonations he proceeded, while one of his visitors regarded him with awestruck reverence, and the other waited with patience—but unimpressed, so the orator felt, by his gifts. His voice sank, by deep-toned gradations into silence. The ray winked out. Then the woman spoke. “Is it possible for your stars to guide me to an object which I have lost?” “Nothing is hidden from the stars,” declared their master. “Their radiance shines not alone upon the broad expanses of existence, but also into the smallest crevices of life. You seek jewels, madam?” (Kent had let this much out, as if by accident, in the morning’s conversation.) “Yes.” “Your birth stone is the bloodstone. Unhappy, indeed, would be the omen if you lost one of those gems.” (He was fishing and came forward toward her, almost brushing Kent.) “But I say,” cried Kent in apparently uncontrollable agitation; “did your stars tell you that she had lost some jewelry? Tell me, is that how you knew?” [Illustration: _See how the aural light seeks it._] In his eagerness he caught at the astrologer’s arm, the right one, and his long fingers, gathering in the ample folds of the gown, pressed nervously upon the wrist. Preston Jax winced away. All the excited vapidity passed from Kent’s speech at once.