"She has no idea."

Madame began to look decidedly grim.

"Date of short-coating?" she rapped out.

"There was no date. She never wore a short-coat."

"Do you desire me to believe, Mr. Vivian, that the old lady has been going about in long clothes ever since she was born?" inquired Madame, with incredulous sarcasm.

"Most certainly I do," replied the Prophet.

"Then how does she get along, pray? Come! Come!"

"She has always worn long clothes," cried the Prophet, boldly standing up for his beloved relative, "and always will. You can take that from me, Madame Sagittarius. I know my grandmother, and I am ready to pledge my honour to it."

"Oh, very well. She must be a very remarkable lady. That's all I can say. When did she put her hair up?"

"Never. She has never put it up."

"She has never put her hair up!"

"No, never."

"You mean to say that your grandmother goes about in long clothes with her hair down in the central districts?" cried Madame in blank amazement.

"She has never put her hair up," answered the Prophet, with almost obstinate determination.

"Oh, well--if she prefers! But I wonder what the police are about!"

retorted Madame. "And now the rashes?"

"There are none."

But at this Madame's temper--already somewhat upset by her prolonged communion with the mighty dead--showed symptoms of giving way altogether.

"Rubbish, Mr. Vivian!" she said, clicking loudly and pa.s.sing with an almost upheaving jerk to her upper register! "I'm a mother and was once a child. Rubbish! I must insist upon knowing the number of the rashes."

"I a.s.sure you there are none."

"D'you wish me to believe that the old lady has gone about all her life in the Berkeley Square in long clothes and her hair down, with her lips to the bottle and never had a rash? Do you wish me to believe that, Mr.

Vivian?"

"Yes, sir, do you wish Madame, a lady of deep education, sir, to believe that?" cried Mr. Sagittarius.

"I can only adhere to what I have said," answered the Prophet. "My grandmother has never been removed from the bottle, has never worn a short coat, has never put her hair up and has never had an epidemic in Berkeley Square."

"Then all I can say is that she's an unnatural old lady," cried Madame, with obvious temper, tossing her head and kicking out the kid boots, as if seized with the sudden desire to use them upon a human football. "And there's not many like her."

"There is no one like her, no one at all," said the Prophet with fervour.

"So I should suppose," cried Madame, forgetting the other questions as to the day of marriage, etc., in the vexation of the moment. "She must certainly be the bird of whom Phoenix wrote that rose from ashes in the days of the cla.s.sics. _Rarum avis_ indeed! Eh, Jupiter?"

"Very rarum, my dear, very indeed!" responded her husband, with imitative sarcasm. "An avis indeed, not a doubt of it."

"De Queechy should have known her," continued Madame. "He always loved everything out of the common. Well, and now for the prophecy. What is all this, Mr. Vivian?"

"The result of last night's observation," said the Prophet.

"Do you call that a cycloidal curve?" asked Madame, with a contralto laugh that shook the library. "Look, Jupiter!"

Mr. Sagittarius glanced over his wife's heaving shoulder.

"Very poor, my dear, very irregular indeed."

"It's the best I could do," said the Prophet, still politely.

"I daresay," replied Mr. Sagittarius. "I daresay. Where's your star-map?"

"I'm afraid I don't know," answered the Prophet. "I left it in the pomade."

"The pomade!"

"Yes, the butler's own special pomade, and it seems to have disappeared."

"Very careless, very careless indeed. Let's see--prophecy first, then how arrived at. 'Grandmother apparently threatened with some danger at night in immediate future. Great turmoil in the house during dark hours.' H'm! 'Some stranger, or strangers, coming into her life and causing great trouble and confusion, almost resulting in despair, and perhaps actually inducing illness.' H'm! H'm! We didn't arrive at any of this by our observations, did we, Sophronia?"

"Decidedly not," snapped Madame, haughtily.

"And now let's see how arrived at. H'm! H'm! Grandmother--ingress of Crab--conjunction of Scorpio with Serpens--moon in eleventh house. Yes, that's so. Jupiter in trine with Saturn--What's this? 'Crab dressed implies danger--undressed Crab much safer--attempted intervention failure--she's in a nice state now--it tried to keep her from it, but she was drawn right to it.' Right to what?"

"The Crab?"

"Of course she was drawn to it. She depends on the Crab these nights.

But what does the rest mean?"

"The Crab was dressed."

"Dressed--what in?"

"I don't know," said the Prophet. "It didn't tell me."

Mr. Sagittarius and Madame exchanged glances.

"Explain yourself, Mr. Vivian, I beg," cried Madame in a somewhat excited manner. "How could the Crab be dressed?"

"I have wondered," said the Prophet, gazing at the couple before him with shining eyes. "But it was dressed last night, and that made it exceptionally dangerous in some way. Something seemed to tell me so.

Something did tell me so."

"What told you?" inquired Madame, with more excitement and a certain respect which had been quite absent from her manner before.