Page:The Master of Mysteries (1912).djvu/147

 In the day when I cried them answeredst me, and strengthenedst me with strength in my soul. (Ps. 138:3.) So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee. (Ps. 73:22.)

Astro worked all day in his studio alone, reading palms and casting horoscopes for his fashionable clients, and during the leisure times between their calls, casting many a glance across to the desk where his pretty blond assistant was wont to look up at him with such animation whenever he spoke. The velvet hangings were dull and shadowy, and the high lights on trophies of arms and tinseled costumes on the wall twinkled through the dusk, when the portières parted, and Valeska, smartly attired, gloved and feathered, appeared. Astro smiled for almost the first time that day. She sank into a deep divan to get her breath. He turned on a light above her head.

"He's a perfect dear!" she said as soon as she could speak. "He isn't at all handsome, in fact he's ugly; but he's the most romantic and kind-hearted chap in the world. I'd trust him anywhere. He has red hair, and twinkling blue eyes, and fine teeth, and so young—why he made me feel eighty years old! It was too easy! I was just what he wanted, and I was intelligent, and he liked my hands." She extended them gracefully for Astro to admire. He kissed her finger-tips.

"It was a funny old place, all full of canvases with their faces to the wall, and dust, and pewter pots, and brushes, and old magazines, and everything. It smelled horribly of tobacco and turpentine; but it was such fun! I didn't have to do much detective work, either.