CHAPTER IV THE "TIGER WOMAN"
For Florence fortune telling had always held a certain fascination, notunmixed with fear. Very early in life she had lived for some time with anaunt. Always now, as she closed her eyes, she could see that aunt,straight-lipped, diligent, at times friendly, but always holding close towhat she believed was "duty." Often, too, she seemed to hear her say,"Cards, all playing cards, belong to the Devil. They are of very ancientorigin, almost as old as Satan himself. The first cards were made for thepurpose of fortune telling. Fortune telling, when it is not pure fraud,belongs to the Devil. Remember Saul. Think how, when he was going tobattle he slipped away to that wicked witch. He asked her to tell him howthe battle would go. Well, he found out, but little pleasure it broughthim! He lost his throne and his head the very next day!"
Florence did not believe all this, nor did she entirely disbelieve it.She tried to look at things calmly and clearly, then decide for herself.All the same, she shuddered as next day she tapped lightly at the doorbehind which a room was shrouded in midnight blue, and where a crystalball shone dully.
She smiled in spite of herself as the door opened only a crack and a pairof suspicious inquiring eyes peered out.
"Something to hide," was the thought that came to her. But was this quitefair? There were policemen always loitering about in the hallway of herown newspaper office. Perhaps all of life was a little dangerous thesedays.
"Marian Stanley sent me," she hastened to say before the door mightclose. "She is the night clerk at the Dunbar Hotel. She told me aboutyou, how--"
"Won't you come in?" The door was wide open now. Before her stood ashort, stout woman with strangely tawny hair. "Like a tiger's," Florencethought, "and I believe it's a genuine shade."
"I--I'd like to learn about crystal gazing," she said as she entered theroom of midnight blue. "Is--is it frightfully difficult?"
"To learn?" The Tiger Lady, as Florence was to call her, elevated hereyebrows. "A certain way, it is not difficult. But to go far, very far,as I have done--" the Tiger Woman sighed. "Ah, that is a matter of years.Then, too, there are secrets, deep secrets." Her voice took on an air ofmystery. "Secrets regarding the meaning of light, sound, and feelings;secrets regarding the moon and the stars, which we who have journeyed farcould not afford to share.
"But if you care to go a little way--" she spread out her hand. "Then Iam here to show you for--let me see--" She pretended to consider. "Oh,you shall pay me two dollars. Huh? Will that be O. K.?" Her voice took ona playful note.
"Two dollars will be all right. And may I begin at once?" There was inFlorence's words a note of eagerness that was genuine.
"This," she was thinking, "is a fresh way of approach. Perhaps there _is_something to this crystal gazing. I may become a famous gazer. How grandthat will be!
"Besides," came as an afterthought, "I may be able to discover someworthwhile facts about that girl who saw those pictures in the crystalball. Surely those pictures were real enough. But how did they comethere? Could her imagination produce them? If so, would I too be able tosee them?" She had a feeling that they had been produced by some strangemagic--or was it magic? She could not be sure.
"Now--" Madame Zaran, the crystal-gazer, took on a manner quiteprofessional as she hid Florence's two dollars on her person. "Now weshall proceed."
She motioned the girl to the ebony chair beside the table where thecrystal ball rested. Then with nervous, active fingers she beganarranging articles on that table.
Florence was interested in these few objects. A raven carved from blackmarble, a bronze dragon with fiery eyes, and a god of some sort with anugly countenance and a prodigious mouth, all these were on that table.Madame arranged them about the crystal ball, but some distance away fromit. Then, as if the ball were a sacred thing, she lifted it with greatcare to place it in a saucer-like receptacle over which a bronze eagleperpetually hovered.
The girl was much interested in the gazer's hands. In her wanderingsabout the city in search of fortune telling facts, she had picked upinteresting bits about hands. She was convinced that long slender fingersbelonged to a person of a nervous and artistic temperament and that avery broad hand told of force coupled with great determination. Madame'shand was fairly broad, but her fingers were not long. Instead they wereshort and curved. "Like the claws of some great cat," the girl thoughtwith a shudder. Never had she seen fingers that seemed better suited toclawing in hoards of gold.
"And she would not care how she came by it," Florence thought. And yet,how could she be sure of that?
"Now," Madame said in a changed tone, "look at the crystal. Concentrate.There is no spirit moving in the crystal. You need not draw one out. Thepictures of past and future you are to see by gazing in the crystal areto come from within your own mind, or shall come to you from the spiritworld outside the crystal.
"Do not stare. Relax. Look quietly at the crystal. In this room there isnothing to disturb you, no radio with its noise, no ticking clock,nothing. The light is subdued. I myself shall retire. You have only togaze in the crystal. This time you may see much. Then again, you may seenothing. It is not given to all, this great gift of looking into thefuture.
"If it is given you to see, you will find first that the crystal beginsto look dull and cloudy, with pin points of light glittering out of thatfog. When this appears, you shall know that you are beginning to havecrystalline vision. In time this shall vanish. In its stead will come asort of blindness wherein you shall appear to float through great spacesof blue. It is against this background of blue that your vision mustappear.
"Ready? Concentrate. Gaze.
"I am gone," came in a tone that sounded faint and far away. Florence wasalone--alone in the room of midnight blue and the faintly gleamingcrystal ball.