stand his making love to me. He has really made me hate cheiromancy. I go in for telepathy now. It is much more amusing.' "You mustn't say anything against cheiromancy here, Lady Windermere; it is the only subject that Arthur does not like people to chaff about. I assure you he is quite serious over it." "You don't mean to say that he believes in it, Sybil?" "Ask him, Lady Windermere, here he is;" and Lord Arthur came up the garden with a large bunch of yellow roses in his hand, and his two children dancing round him. "Lord Arthur?" "Yes, Lady Windermere." "You don't mean to say that you believe in cheiromancy?" "Of course I do," said the young man, smiling. "But why?" "Because I owe to it all the happiness of my life," he murmured, throwing himself into a wicker chair. "My dear Lord Arthur, what do you owe to it?" "Sybil," he answered, handing his wife the roses, and looking into her violet eyes. "What nonsense!" cried Lady Windermere. "I never heard such nonsense in all my life." THE SPHINX WITHOUT A SECRET. One afternoon I was sitting outside the Cafe de la Paix, watching the splendour and shabbiness of Parisian life, and wondering over my vermouth at the strange panorama of pride and poverty that was passing before me, when I heard some one call my name. I turned round, and saw Lord Murchison. We had not met since we had been at college together, nearly ten years before, so I was delighted to come across him again, and we shook hands warmly. At Oxford we had been great friends. I had liked him immensely, he was so handsome, so high-spirited, and so honourable. We used to say of him that he would be the best of fellows, if he did not always speak the truth, but I think we really admired him all the more for his frankness. I found him a good deal changed. He looked anxious and puzzled, and seemed to be in doubt about something. I felt it could not be modern |