The Greater Trumps Read Online Free PDF Page A

you—have you the secret?”
    Henry sat down on the edge of the table and idly fingered one of the cards. “Don’t believe me too much,” he said. “I don’t believe myself. I don’t know about the secret—no, I think we still have to find that out. But I think”—he dropped the card and looked burningly at his grandfather—“I think I have found the originals.”
    Aaron gave a short gasp. “It’s not possible,” he began, and fell into a fit of trembling so great that he dropped again into his chair. When to a degree it had passed, he said once more, “It’s not possible.”
    â€œYou think not?” the younger man asked.
    â€œTell me,” Aaron exclaimed, leaning forward, “what are they? Why do you believe—how can you—that …” His voice stopped, so anxious was he, but after a moment’s pause he added, “Tell me; tell me.”
    â€œIt is so unlikely,” Henry began, “and yet with them there is nothing either likely or unlikely, is there? One cannot tell how they will move tomorrow. Tell me first, grandfather, do you still watch my future every day?”
    â€œEvery day by the cards,” Aaron said.
    â€œAnd did yesterday promise nothing for today?” the young man asked.
    â€œNothing that I thought important,” Aaron answered. “Something was to come to you, some piece of good luck. The ace of cups lay on the Wheel of Fortune—but I thought it had to do with your law. I put it by to ask you about when you came.”
    â€œYou are old, grandfather,” Henry said. “Are the cups only deniers for you to think so?”
    â€œBut what could I think?” Aaron protested. “It was a day’s chance—I couldn’t … But what is it? What have you found?”
    â€œI have told you I am betrothed,” Henry went on, using the solemn word as if deliberately, “and her father has had left him—by a friend of his who is dead—a collection of playing-cards. Oh, the usual thing, except for a set of the symbols. He showed them to us and I tell you, grandfather, I think it is the very one original set. I’ve come here tonight to see.”
    â€œHave you got them?” the old one asked eagerly, but Henry shook his head.
    â€œTime enough,” he said. “Listen, among them is not the Chariot an Egyptian car, devised with two sphinxes, driven by a Greek, and having on it paintings of cities and islands?”
    â€œIt is just that,” the other said.
    â€œAnd Death—is not Death a naked peasant, with a knife in his hand, with his sandals slung at his side?”
    â€œIt is so,” the other said again.
    â€œCertainly then they are the same,” Henry concluded. “But let us look at them , for that’s why I have come.”
    The old man got up and took from an inner pocket of his coat a key. He walked slowly to the inner door, and Henry followed him. He put the key in the lock, turned it, and opened the door. Within the room they were on the point of entering, and directly before them, there hung from ceiling to floor thick black curtains, and for a moment, as he laid his hand on one of these, the old man hesitated. Then he half pulled it aside, half lifted it, and went through, holding it so that his grandson might enter after him.
    The place into which they came was smaller than the outer room. It was hung all round with a heavy black stuff, and it was filled with a curious pale light, which certainly did not come through any window or other opening. The color of that pale light was uncertain; it seemed to change softly from one hue to another. Now it was red, as if it were the reflection of a very distant fire; now it was green, as if diffused through invisible waters that covered them; now it was darker and half obscured by vapor; now those vapors were dispelled and the clear pallor of early dawn exhibited