Page:Belloc Lowndes--The chink in the armour.djvu/27

Rh She gazed searchingly at Sylvia, and her eyes travelled over Mrs. Bailey's neck and bosom.

"I see them and yet they are not there! They appear like little balls of light. Surely it is a necklace?"

Sylvia looked extremely surprised. Now, at last, Madame Cagliostra was justifying her claim to a supernatural gift!

"These balls of light are also your Fate!" exclaimed the woman impetuously. "If you had them here—I care not what they be—I should entreat you to give them to me to throw away."

Madame Wolsky began to laugh. "I don't think you would do that," she observed drily.

But Madame Cagliostra did not seem to hear the interruption.

"Have you heard of a mascot?" she said abruptly. "Of a mascot which brings good fortune to its wearer?"

Sylvia bent her head. Of course she had heard of mascots.

"Well, if so, you have, of course, heard of objects which bring misfortune to their wearers—which are, so to speak, unlucky mascots?"

And this time it was Anna Wolsky who, leaning forward, nodded gravely. She attributed a run of bad luck she had had the year before to a trifling gift, twin cherries made of enamel, which a friend had given her, in her old home, on her birthday. Till she had thrown that little brooch into the sea, she had been persistently unlucky at play.

"Your friend," murmured Madame Cagliostra, now addressing herself to Anna and not to Sylvia, "should dis-