“Yes.  Now, Mr. Vivian, that’s all very well, and you know I’m the last person to complain of anything of that sort, so long as it doesn’t get me into difficulties.”

“Think of the difficulties you and everyone else have got me into,” ejaculated the poor Prophet, for once in his life stepping, perhaps, a hair’s-breadth from the paths of good breeding.

“Well, I’m sure I’ve done nothing.”

“Nothing!” said the Prophet, losing his head under the influence of the guitars, which were now getting under way in a fantasia on “Carmen.”  “Nothing!  Why, you made me come here, you insisted on my introducing Mr. Sagittarius to Mrs. Bridgeman, you told Sir Tiglath Mrs. Bridgeman and I were old friends and had made investigations together, assisted by Mr. Sagittarius, you—­”

“Oh, well, that’s nothing.  But Sir Tiglath mustn’t see me here as Miss Minerva.  Has he arrived yet?”

“I don’t think so.  He’s got the cab we had yesterday and the horse.”

“The one that tumbles down so cleverly when it’s not too tired?  Capital!  Run to the cloak-room, meet Sir Tiglath there, and persuade him to go home.”

But here the Prophet struck.

“I regret I can’t,” he said, almost firmly.

“But you must.”

“I regret sincerely that I am unable.”

“Why?  Mr. Vivian, when a lady asks you!”

“I am grieved,” said the Prophet, with a species of intoxicated obstinacy—­the guitars seemed to be playing inside his brain and the flute piping in the small of his back,—­“to decline, but I cannot contend physically with Sir Tiglath, a man whom I reverence, in the cloak-room of a total stranger.”

“I don’t ask you to contend physically.”

“Nothing but personal violence would keep Sir Tiglath from coming in.”

“Really!  Then what’s to be done?”

She pursed up her sensible lips and drew down her sensible eyebrows.

“I know!” she cried, after a moment’s thought.  “I’ll masquerade to-night as myself.”

“As yourself?”

“Yes.  All these dear silly people here think that I’ve got an astral body.”

“What’s that?”

“A sort of floating business—­a business that you can set floating.”

“What—­a company?”

“No, no.  A replica of yourself.  The great Towle—­”

“He’s here to-night.”

“I knew he was coming.  Well, the great Towle detached this astral body once at a seance and, for a joke—­a silly joke, you know—­”

“Yes, yes.”

“I christened it by my real name, Lady Enid Thistle, and said Lady Enid was an ancestress of mine.”

“Why did you?”

“Because it was so idiotic.”

“I see.”

“Well, I’ve only now to spread a report among these dear creatures that I’m astral to-night, and get Towle to back me up, and I can easily be Lady Enid for an hour or two.  In this crowd Sir Tiglath need never find out that I’m generally known in these circles as Miss Partridge.”