第46章

"It was in connection with this idea that Mr.Vivian developed his enthusiasm for the telescope--which led him, perhaps, a little too far, Sir Tiglath, but I'm sure Mrs.Merillia and you have quite forgotten that!"Here Lady Enid paused, and the astronomer achieved the final conquest of the muffin.

"He and Mrs.Bridgeman have been, in fact, working together, she being the brain, as it were, and Mr.Vivian the eye.You've been the eye, Mr.

Vivian?"

"I've been the eye."

"But, despite all their ardour and assiduity, they have come to a sort of deadlock.In these circumstances they come to you, making me--as your, may I say intimate, friend?--their mouthpiece."Here Lady Enid paused rather definitely, and cast a glance of apparently violent invitation at the Prophet, as if suggesting that he must now amplify and fill in her story.As he did not do so, a heavy silence fell in the room.Sir Tiglath had returned to his measuring, and Lady Enid, for the first time, began to look slightly embarrassed.

Sending her eyes vaguely about the apartment, as people do on such occasions, she chanced to see a newspaper lying on the floor near to her.She bent down towards it, then raising herself up she said,--"Mrs.Bridgeman some time ago came to the conclusion that there was probably oxygen in certain stars, and not only in the fixed stars."At this remark the astronomer's countenance completely changed.He swung round in his revolving chair, wagged his huge head from side to side, and finally roared at the Prophet,--"Is she telling the truth?"

"I beg your pardon," said the Prophet, bounding on the instruments.

"Get off those precious tools, young man, far more valuable than your finite carcase! Get off them this moment and answer me--is this young female speaking the truth?"The Prophet got off the instruments and, in answer to a firm, Scottish gesture from Lady Enid, nodded his head twice.

"What!" continued Sir Tiglath, puffing out his cheeks, "a woman be a pioneer among the Heavenly Bodies!"The Prophet nodded again, as mechanically as a penny toy.

"The old astronomer is exercised," bawled Sir Tiglath, with every symptom of acute perturbation."He is greatly exercised by the narrative of the young female!"So saying, he heaved himself up out of his chair and began to roll rapidly up and down the room, alternately distending his cheeks and permitting them to collapse.

"I should tell you also, Sir Tiglath," interposed Lady Enid, as if struck by a sudden idea, "that Mrs.Bridgeman's original adviser and assistant in her astronomical researches was a certain Mr.Sagittarius, who is also an intimate friend of Mr.Vivian's."The Prophet sat down again upon the instruments with a thud.

"Get off those precious tools, young man!" roared the astronomer furiously."Would you impose your vile body upon the henchmen of the stars?"The Prophet got up again and leaned against the wall.