Page:The Master of Mysteries (1912).djvu/178



H, dear, she's come to see you again!" said Valeska, making a very pretty picture as she stood in the doorway, framed by the black velvet portières.

Astro the Seer followed his first indulgent look by a second questioning, curious glance. "Who is it?"

She put her head on one side and looked at him coquettishly. "A lady," she said, tossing her head archly, "whom, among all your fashionable clients, I believe you consider the most charming, most delicious, the prettiest, the sweetest, the most—"

Astro laughed and nodded. "Miss Dalrymple?"

"The same. She was here only last week. It is very suspicious! Beware!" She shook a saucy finger at him and disappeared.

The young woman who next entered assuredly justified Valeska's adjectives. Indeed, many more might have been applied to her, though the smile that appeared on Astro's own handsome face best testified to her witchery. She was scarcely twenty years old, and of that dark, winning, dimpled, innocent type that few know how to resist. To this, there was an appealing look that flattered men's vanity. Were her brown eyes or her delectable smiling mouth the more lovely to look upon? Astro himself could not tell. Was it her easy Rh