Page:The Blind Man's Eyes (July 1916).pdf/56

36 Very well; my first guess is that you have not done much walking with young women on station platforms—certainly not much of late."

"I'll try to do better, if you'll tell me how you know that?"

"You do very well. I was not criticising you, and I don't have to tell why. Ask no questions; it is a clairvoyant diviner who is speaking."

"Divinity?"

"Diviner only. My second guess is that you have been abroad in far lands."

"My railroad ticket showed as much as that."

"Pardon me, if it seriously injures your self-esteem; but I was not sufficiently interested in you when you came aboard the train, to observe your ticket. What I know is divined from the exceedingly odd and reminiscent way in which you look at all things about you—at this train, this station, the people who pass."

"You find nothing reminiscent, I suppose, in the way I look at you?"

"You do yourself injustice. You do not look at me at all, so I cannot tell; but there could hardly be any reminiscence extending beyond this morning, since you never saw me before then."

"No; this is all fresh experience."

"I hope it is not displeasing. My doubt concerning your evidently rather long absence abroad is as to whether you went away to get or to forget."

"I'm afraid I don't quite understand."

"Those are the two reasons for which young men go to Asia, are they not?—to get something or to forget something. At least, so I have been given to understand. Shall I go on?"