"Madame, sir, in her library," whispered Mr. Sagittarius by the door.

"She is absorbed, sir, and does not notice us."

In truth Madame Sagittarius did appear to be absorbed in thought, or something else, for her eyes were closed, her mouth was open, and a sound of regular breathing filled the little room.

"She is thinking out some problem, sir," continued Mr. Sagittarius.

"She is communing with the mighty dead. Sophronia, my love, Sophronia, Capricornus has brought the gentleman according to your orders. Sophy!

Sophy!"

His final utterances, which were somewhat strident caused Madame Sagittarius to come away from her communion with the mighty dead with a loud e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of the nature of a snort combined with a hissing whistle, to kick up her indoor kid boots into the air, turn upon her right elbow, and present a countenance marked with patches of red and white, and a pair of goggling, and yet hazy, eyes to the intruders upon her intellectual exertions.

"Mr. Vivian has come, Sophronia, according to your directions."

Madame uttered a second snort, brought her feet to the floor, arranged her face in a dignified expression with one fair hand, breathed heavily, and finally bowed to the Prophet with majestic reserve and remarked, with the professional click,--

"I was immersed in thought and did not perceive your entrance. _Mens invictus manetur_. Be seated, I beg."

Here certain very elaborate contortions and swellings of her interesting countenance suggested that she was repressing a good-sized yawn, and she was obliged to rearrange her features with both hands before she could continue.

"Thought conquers matter, as Plauto--I should say as Platus very rightly obesrved."

"Quite so," a.s.sented the Prophet, trying to live up to the library, but scarcely succeeding.

"Even in the days of the great Juvenile," proceeded Madame, "to whose satires I owe much"--here she laid a loving hand upon Vol. 2 of the "Library of Famous Literature."--"Long ere the days when Lord Lytton and his Caxtons introduced us to the blessings of the printing press there were doubtless ladies who, like myself, could forget the treachery and the lies of men in silent communion with the brains of the departed. Far better to be Milton's 'Il Penserosero' than Lord Byron's 'L'Allegra!'"

To this p.r.o.nounciamento, which was interrupted several times by more alarming contortions of the brain-worker's face, the Prophet replied with a vague affirmative, while Mr. Sagittarius whispered,--

"Her whole knowledge, sir, comes straight from there"--pointing towards the dwarf bookcase. "She brought it on the instalment system. Dr. Carter has made her what she is! That man, sir, deserves to be canonised. Eight guineas and a half, sir, and such a result!"

"Such a result!" the Prophet whispered back.

By this time Madame Sagittarius had apparently ceased to commune with the dead, for her striking face a.s.sumed a more normal expression of feminine bitterness as she realised who was before her, and she exclaimed sharply,--

"Oh, so you've come at last, Mr. Vivian! And pray what have you to say? What about the rashes? And what is this danger that threatens Mr.

Sagittarius?"

"We'd better take the danger first, my dear," said Mr. Sagittarius, with grave anxiety.

"Very well. Not that it should be the most important to one who wears the _toga virilibus_!"

"True, my love. Still, to take it first will clear the ground, I think, and set me more at ease. Well, sir?"

Thus adjured, the Prophet resolved to make a clean breast of Sir Tiglath's declarations, and he therefore replied,--

"I thought it only right to wire to you as I did, having learnt that there is in London a gentleman, an eminent man, who has for five-and-forty years been seeking for Malkiel with the avowed intention of--of--"

"Oh what, sir, of what?" said Mr. Sagittarius with trembling lips.

"Of doing him violence," replied the Prophet, impressively.

"What is the gent's name?" said Mr. Sagittarius, in great agitation.

"His name! _Nomen volens_!" added Madame.

"That," said the Prophet, "I prefer not to say at present."

"But why should he desire to--?"

"Because you are a prophet."

"There, Jupiter!" cried Madame, with flushed spitefulness. "What have I always said! All prophets are what they call outsiders--_hors d'oeuvres_, neither more nor less."

"I know, my love, I know. But how should this gent recognise me for a prophet? I'm sure my dress, my manner, are those of an outside broker, as I have often told you, Sophy. How--"

"The gentleman has not yet recognised you," said the Prophet. "At the moment he believes you to be an American syndicate."

"Thank mercy!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr. Sagittarius.

"But one can never tell," added the Prophet. "He might find out."

"Nonsense!" cried Madame at this juncture. "We might quite well have gone to the square yesterday as I always suspected. But you are so timid, Jupiter. _Timeo Dan--Dan_--well, _Dan_ something or other, as Virgil so truly says."

"Cautious, Sophronia, only cautious, for your and the children's sakes!"

"I call a man who's afraid even when he's pa.s.sing everywhere as an American syndicate a cowardly custard," rejoined Madame, who appeared to be suffering under that peculiar form of flushed irritability which is apt to follow on heavy thought, indulged in to excess in a rec.u.mbent position during the daytime. "There, that's settled. So now let us get to business. Kindly hand me your prophecy of last night, Mr. Vivian."

The Prophet drew from a breast pocket a sheet or two of notepaper, on which he had dotted down, in prophetic form, the events of the night before. Madame received it and continued,--

"Before perusing this report, Mr. Vivian, I should wish to be made acquainted with those particulars."

"Which ones?" said the Prophet.

"Of your grandmother's career."

"Oh, I--"

"Let us take them in order, please, and proceed _parri pa.s.so_. When was the old lady removed from the bottle?"

"Never," replied the Prophet, firmly. "Never."

An expression of incredulous amazement decorated the obstreperous features of Madame.

"Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Vivian, that she sucks it still?" she inquired.

"I mean what I say, that she has never been removed from it," returned the Prophet, with energy.

"Well, sir, she must be very partial to milk and Indian rubber, very partial indeed!" said Mr. Sagittarius. "Go on, my darling."

"Her first tooth, Mr. Vivian--when did she cut it?"