Malkiel the Second drew the cupboard door to, and grasped a silver candelabrum in each hand to sustain himself upon the rather sharp rim of the loving-cup.
“What is the square to me or I to the square?” returned Madame with ungrammatical majesty. “Madame Malkiel is not governed by any ordinary laws. Lexes non scripta is her motto. To these alone she clings.”
Her husband clung to the candelabra and burst into a violent perspiration. Through the keyhole of the cupboard a ray of light now shone, and he heard the frou-frou of his partner’s skirt, the flump of the rabbit-skins as she cast them from her ample shoulders upon the floor. The Prophet’s voice became audible again.
“What do you wish me to do?” he said, with a sort of embittered courtesy.
“Throw open the window, place yourself before the telescope, and proceed at once to your investigations,” replied the lady.
“I am not in a condition to investigate,” said the Prophet. “I am not indeed. If you will only let me get you a cab, to-morrow night—”
“It is useless to talk, Mr. Vivian,” said Madame, very sharply. “The cab has not yet been made that will convey me to the Mouse to-night.”
“But your husband—”
“My husband is a coward, unworthy of such a wife as he possesses. At the crisis of our fortunes—What’s that?”
At this painful moment Malkiel the Second was so overcome by emotion, that he trembled, and allowed his left foot to rattle slightly on the sugar basin.