The time may be at
hand when we need no longer hide ourselves beneath an _alibi_. Till then
we must possess ourselves, and Mr. Vivian must possess us, in patience.
Ill as I am, I will accompany you. To-night shall see me in the
Zoological Gardens at my husband's side."
Before the prospect of this sublime self-sacrifice both Mr. Sagittarius
and the Prophet were as men dumb. They said not a word. They only
gazed--with a sort of strange idiotcy--at Madame as she rose, with an
elaborate and studied feebleness, from the maroon couch and prepared to
go upstairs to assume the appropriate _neglige_. Only when she was at
her full height did the Prophet, rendered desperate by the terrible
results of his own ingenuity, nerve himself to utter one last protest.
"I really do not think it would be quite according to the rules of
etiquette which prevail in the central districts," he cried, "for a lady
to spend the night in the butler's pantry of a comparative stranger,
even when accompanied by her husband. It might give rise to talk in the
square, and--"
"The butler's pantry, sir!" exclaimed Mr. Sagittarius. "Explain
yourself, I beg."
"The telescope is there, and--"
"I have passed beyond the reach of etiquette," said Madame, looking
considerably like Joan of Arc and other well-known heroines.
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