"Married an English squire about five years ago?"
"How the deuce do you know that?" said I, in amazement.
Again the look of the satyr seemed to transfigure him.
"What, pray, is the use of being a soothsayer without one is permitted to dabble a little in the black arts?"
"Theodore, my friend," said I, with a somewhat disconcerted laugh, "I am inclined to think you must be the Devil."
"Perchance, my dear boy, perchance." The Ogre placed the tips of his fingers together in a way he had. "May it interest you to know that the Devil is a more potent figure in the public life of our little day than our German friends allow for. Never despise the Devil, and never mention him lightly in any company, for he is always looking at you."
The twin moons were enfolding me with a refulgence that in the dim January twilight was so uncanny that, had I been other than of a fairly robust materialistic texture, I might have felt a kind of horror.
"It is very interesting that your friend Mrs. Fitzwaren—black hair, olive complexion, remarkable appearance, a type you can't place—should come to me like this. The fact is, my dear boy, things are not always what they seem. Judging by the recent behaviour of one or two rather important planetary bodies, and of the new body of which our observant French friends have lately learned to take cognisance, the visit of your friend Mrs. Nevil Fitzwaren to your cracked Uncle Theodore at his local habitation in Bryanston Square may have some kind of a bearing on the destiny of nations. How say you?"
"My dear Theodore," I expostulated, from motives of policy, "my dear Theodore, you really are, 'pon my word you really are——!"
All the same, it was with a singular complexity of emotion that I went forth to lead this prophet and soothsayer into the presence of the Crown Princess of Illyria.