“I see,” she whispered to the Prophet. “His mania is about animals.”
Meanwhile the Prophet had made a warning face at Mr. Sagittarius, who suddenly remembered his danger and subsided, glancing uneasily at Sir Tiglath, whose intention of addressing him had been momentarily interfered with by a sweetbread masked in a puree of spinach.
Madame Sagittarius, assisted by food and dry champagne, was now—as the Prophet perceived with horror—beginning to feel quite at her ease. She protruded her elbows, sat more extensively in her chair, rolled her prominent eyes about the room as one accustomed to her state, and said, with condescension, to Lady Julia,—
“Is your ladyship to make one of the party at the Zoological Gardens to-night?”
Lady Julia, who now began to suppose that Mr. Sagittarius’s crazy passion for animals was shared by his wife, gasped and answered,—
“Are you going to the Zoological Gardens?”
“Yes, to an assembly. It should be very pleasant. Do you make one?”
“I regret that I am not invited,” said Lady Julia, rather stiffly.
Madame bridled, under the impression that she was scoring off a member of the aristocracy.
“Indeed,” she remarked, with a click. “Yet I presume that your ladyship is not insensible to the charms of rout and collation?”