“Listen, sir,” said Bella. “Your lovely woman was told her fortune tonight on her way home. It won’t be a large fortune, because if the lovely woman’s intended gets a certain appointment that he hopes to get soon, she will marry on a hundred and fifty pounds a year. But that’s at first, and even if it should never be more, the lovely woman will make it quite enough. But that’s not all, sir. In the fortune there’s a certain fair man⁠—a little man, the fortune-teller said⁠—who, it seems, will always find himself near the lovely woman, and will always have kept, expressly for him, such a peaceful corner in the lovely woman’s little house as never was. Tell me the name of that man, sir.”

“Is he a Knave in the pack of cards?” inquired the cherub, with a twinkle in his eyes.