"
She smiled with pleasure.
"I'm so glad you think so. Ah--exactly a year and a half."
"You've been Miss Minerva Partridge?"
"Yes."
"So long as that?"
"Yes, indeed. Mr. Vivian, during that time I have been leading a double
life."
The Prophet remembered the other double life beside the borders of the
River Mouse, and began to wonder if he were acquainted with any human
being who led a single one.
"Many people do that," he remarked rather aimlessly.
Lady Enid looked vexed.
"I did not say I had a monopoly of the commodity," she rejoined,
evidently wishing that she had.
"Oh, no," said the Prophet, making things worse; "one meets people who
live double lives every day, I might almost say every hour."
The clock had just struck four, and he had begun to think of five. Lady
Enid's pleasant plumpness began rapidly to disappear.
"I can't say I do," she said sharply, feeling that most of the gilt was
being stripped off her sin.
She stopped in such obvious dissatisfaction that the Prophet, vaguely
aware that he had made some mistake, said,--
"Please go on. I am so interested. Why have you led a double life for
the last week and a half?"
"Year and a half, I said.
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