In truth Madame Sagittarius did appear to be absorbed in thought, or something else, for her eyes were closed, her mouth was open, and a sound of regular breathing filled the little room.

“She is thinking out some problem, sir,” continued Mr. Sagittarius.  “She is communing with the mighty dead.  Sophronia, my love, Sophronia, Capricornus has brought the gentleman according to your orders.  Sophy!  Sophy!”

His final utterances, which were somewhat strident caused Madame Sagittarius to come away from her communion with the mighty dead with a loud ejaculation of the nature of a snort combined with a hissing whistle, to kick up her indoor kid boots into the air, turn upon her right elbow, and present a countenance marked with patches of red and white, and a pair of goggling, and yet hazy, eyes to the intruders upon her intellectual exertions.

“Mr. Vivian has come, Sophronia, according to your directions.”

Madame uttered a second snort, brought her feet to the floor, arranged her face in a dignified expression with one fair hand, breathed heavily, and finally bowed to the Prophet with majestic reserve and remarked, with the professional click,—­

“I was immersed in thought and did not perceive your entrance. Mens invictus manetur.  Be seated, I beg.”

Here certain very elaborate contortions and swellings of her interesting countenance suggested that she was repressing a good-sized yawn, and she was obliged to rearrange her features with both hands before she could continue.

“Thought conquers matter, as Plauto—­I should say as Platus very rightly obesrved.”

“Quite so,” assented the Prophet, trying to live up to the library, but scarcely succeeding.

“Even in the days of the great Juvenile,” proceeded Madame, “to whose satires I owe much”—­here she laid a loving hand upon Vol. 2 of the “Library of Famous Literature.”—­“Long ere the days when Lord Lytton and his Caxtons introduced us to the blessings of the printing press there were doubtless ladies who, like myself, could forget the treachery and the lies of men in silent communion with the brains of the departed.  Far better to be Milton’s ‘Il Penserosero’ than Lord Byron’s ‘L’Allegra!’”

To this pronounciamento, which was interrupted several times by more alarming contortions of the brain-worker’s face, the Prophet replied with a vague affirmative, while Mr. Sagittarius whispered,—­

“Her whole knowledge, sir, comes straight from there”—­pointing towards the dwarf bookcase.  “She brought it on the instalment system.  Dr. Carter has made her what she is!  That man, sir, deserves to be canonised.  Eight guineas and a half, sir, and such a result!”

“Such a result!” the Prophet whispered back.

By this time Madame Sagittarius had apparently ceased to commune with the dead, for her striking face assumed a more normal expression of feminine bitterness as she realised who was before her, and she exclaimed sharply,—­