“I—I thought I said sharp, sir,” remarked Malkiel, at length, with a great effort recovering himself.
“Wasn’t I sharp?” returned the Prophet. “Will you present me?”
“Are you equal to it, my love?” inquired Malkiel, tenderly, to the contralto voice.
The contralto voice nodded hysterically.
“Madame Sagittarius, sir,” said Malkiel, turning proudly to the Prophet, “my wife, the mother of Corona and Capricornus.”
The Prophet bowed and the lady inclined herself, slightly protruding her elbows as she did so, as if just to draw attention to the fact that she was possessed of those appendages and could use them if necessary.
Madame Malkiel, or rather Madame Sagittarius, as she must for the present be called, was a smallish woman of some forty winters. Her hair, which was drawn away intellectually from an ample and decidedly convex brow, was as black as a patent leather boot, and had a gloss upon it as of carefully-adjusted varnish. Her eyes were very large, very dark and very prominent. Her features were obstreperous and rippling, running from right to left, and her teeth, which were shaded by a tiny black moustache, gleamed in a manner that could scarcely be called natural. She was attired in a black velvet gown trimmed with a very large quantity of beadwork, a bonnet adorned with purple cherries, green tulips and orange-coloured ostrich tips, a pelisse, to which bugles had been applied with no uncertain hand, and an opal necklace. Her gloves were of white, her boots of black kid, the latter being furnished with elastic sides, and over her left wrist she carried a plush reticule, whose mouth was kept shut by a tightly-drawn scarlet riband. On the left side of her pelisse reposed a round bouquet of violets about the size of a Rugby football.
“I thought you might like to have some tea,” began the Prophet, in his most soothing manner, while Mr. Ferdinand, with pursed lips, softly arranged that beverage upon the seat which Mr. Sagittarius—so we must call him—had just vacated.
“Thank you,” said Madame Sagittarius, with dignity. “It would be acceptable. The long journey from the banks of the Mouse to these central districts is not without its fatigue. A beautiful equipage!”
“You said—”