“I can hardly say, Sophronia, that, I can’t indeed. I have met her, by accident, quite by accident I assure you, once or twice.”
“Where?”
“At Jellybrand’s. She goes there to fetch letters on the same day as I do.”
Madame’s very intellectual brow was over-clouded with storm. She turned upon the Prophet.
“And what of this person, Mr. Vivian?” she cried. “What of her and this oath?”
The Prophet, who was secretly very delighted with the diversion he had so cleverly created, hastened to reply,—
“I have promised most solemnly to meet her to-night at a house in the Zoological Gardens!”
“A house in the Zoological Gardens!”
“I mean at the Zoological House, the residence of Mrs. Vane Bridgeman, who is—”
But, at this point in his explanation, the Prophet was interrupted by both his hearers.