"Thanks. I think I will."
"You won"t mind stopping for a moment at Hollings"s?" said the Prophet, in Piccadilly Circus. "I promised to buy some roses. Somebody is coming in to tea."
"On, no. But who is it?"
"I don"t know. Only one person, I think. An old friend, no doubt.
Probably the Central American Amba.s.sador"s grandfather."
"Oh, if that"s all! I feel a little shaky still."
"Naturally."
The Prophet bought the roses and they drove on.
"It"s very nice of you not to ask any questions," observed Lady Enid, presently.
The Prophet had been thinking it was, but he only said,--
"Oh, not at all."
"I"m a woman," promised Lady Enid, "and I don"t know whether I can be so nice."
The Prophet glanced at her and met her curious grey eyes.
"Try--please," he replied very gently, thinking of the oath which he had just taken.
Lady Enid was silent for two minutes, then she remarked,--
"I have tried, but I can"t succeed. Why on earth were you closeted in the parlour--at my time, too--with Mr. Sagittarius this afternoon?"
"Then you really are Miss Minerva Partridge? And it was really you who had--had--well, "bespoke" the parlour at half-past three?"
"Certainly. Now we are neither of us nice, but we"re both of us human."
"There were some letters for you," said the Prophet.
Lady Enid wrinkled her smooth, young, healthy-looking forehead.
"How stupid of me! I"ll fetch them to-morrow. Well?"
She looked at the Prophet with obvious expectation.
"I"m so sorry I can"t tell you," he replied with gentle firmness.
"Oh, all right," she rejoined. "But now I"m at a disadvantage. You know I"m Miss Minerva."
"Yes. But I don"t know why you are, or why you go to Jellybrand"s, or why you rushed into the parlour, or who the old gentleman was that--"
The cab stopped before Mrs. Merillia"s house.
In the hall, upon an oaken bench, they perceived a very broad-brimmed top hat standing on its head. Beside it lay two pieces of a stout and k.n.o.bbly walking stick which had been broken in half. Lady Enid started violently.
"Good Heavens!" she cried.
She picked up the walking stick, examined it, and laid it down.
"I don"t think I want any tea," she murmured.
"I"m sure you do," said the Prophet, with some pressure.
She stood still for a moment. Then, catching the attentive round eye of Gustavus, who was waiting by the hall door, she shrugged her shoulders and walked towards the staircase.
"It"s very hard lines," she murmured as she began to ascend: "all the questions you wanted to ask are being answered. You know I"m Miss Minerva already. In another minute you"ll know who the old gentleman was that--"
The Prophet could tell from the expression of her straight, slightly Scottish, back that she was pouting as she entered the drawing-room where Mrs. Merillia was having tea with--somebody.
CHAPTER VI
THE OLD ASTRONOMER DISCOURSETH OF THE STARS
Never before had the Prophet felt so alive with curiosity as he did when he followed Lady Enid into Mrs. Merillia"s presence, for he knew that he was about to see the venerable victim of the young librarian"s indignant chivalry, the "old gent" who had come to intimate terms with Jellybrand"s bookcase, and who had kicked and knocked at least a pint of paint off Jellybrand"s door. His eyes were large and staring as he glanced swiftly from his grandmother"s sofa to the huge telescope, under whose very shadow was seated no less a personage than Sir Tiglath b.u.t.t, holding a cup of tea on one hand and a large-sized m.u.f.fin in the other.
No wonder the Prophet jumped. No wonder Mrs. Merillia cried out, in her pretty, clear voice,--
"Take care of Beau, Hennessey! You"re treading on him."
The dachshund"s pathetic shriek of outrage made the rafters ring. Mrs.
Merillia put her mittens to her ears, and Sir Tiglath dropped his m.u.f.fin into a jar of pot-pourri.
"I beg your pardon," said the Prophet, earnestly. "Sir Tiglath--this is indeed a sur--a pleasure."
Lady Enid was being embraced by Mrs. Merillia. The Prophet extended his hand to the astronomer, who, however, turned his back to the company and, diving one of his enormous hands into the pot-pourri jar, began to rummage violently for his vanished meal.
"What is it?" said the Prophet, who had not seen the m.u.f.fin go. "Can I help you?"
Still presenting his huge back and the purple nape of his fat neck to the a.s.semblage, the astronomer, after trying in vain to extract the lost dainty in a legitimate manner, turned the jar upside down, and poured the rose-leaves and the m.u.f.fin in a heterogeneous libation upon the Chippendale table. After a close examination of it he turned around, holding up the food to whose b.u.t.tered surface several leaves adhered in a disordered, but determined, manner.
"Only a Persian could devour this m.u.f.fin now," he said, in his rumbling, sing-song and strangely theatrical voice, which always suggested that he was about to deliver a couple of hundred or so lengths of blank verse.
"Omar beneath his tree perchance, or Gurustu who to Baghdad came with steed a-foam and eyes a-flame. Wherefore do you trample upon hapless animals that are not dumb, young man, and cause the poor astronomer to cast his m.u.f.fin upon the roses, where, mayhap, the housemaid might find it after many days? Oh-h-h-h!"
He uttered a tremulous ba.s.s cry of mingled reproach and despair, that sounded rather like the wail of some deplorable watchman upon a city wall, shaking his enormous head at the Prophet the while, and flapping his red hands slowly in the air.
"How d"you do, Sir Tiglath?" said Lady Enid, coming up to him with light carelessness.
Sir Tiglath bowed.
"Very ill, very ill," he rumbled, looking at her furtively with his gla.s.sy eyes. "One has had an afternoon of tragedy, an afternoon of brawling and of disturbance, in an avenue that shall henceforth be called accursed."