This position of affairs had, not unnaturally, thrown then into a
condition of the gravest excitement. Madame, more especially, had
reached boiling point. Feeling herself, for the first time, an Imperial
creature in exile, who had only to declare herself to receive instant
homage and to be overwhelmed with the most flattering attentions,
her lust of glory developed with alarming rapidity, and she urged her
husband to cast the traditions that had hitherto guided him to the
winds and to declare forthwith his identity with Malkiel the Second, the
business-like and as it were official head of the whole prophetic tribe.
Mr. Sagittarius, for his part, was also fired with the longing for
instant glory, but he was by nature an extremely timid--or shall we
say rather, an extremely prudent--man. He remembered the repeated
injunctions of his great forebear who had lived and died in the Susan
Road beside the gasworks. More, he remembered Sir Tiglath Butt. He was
torn between ambition and terror.
"Declare yourself, Jupiter!" cried Madame. "Declare yourself this
moment!"
"My love!" replied Mr. Sagittarius. "My angel, we must reflect."
"I have reflected," retorted Madame.
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