"
"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.
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