The Prophet of Berkeley Square Part 19

"Does he go to Jellybrand's?" he exclaimed, with a wild attempt after astonishment. "But he's a company--Sir Tiglath said so."

"And what did your eyes say yesterday?"

"I had a cold in my eyes yesterday," said the Prophet. "They were very weak. They were--they were aching."

Lady Enid was silent for a moment. During that moment she was conferring with her feminine instinct. What it said to her must be guessed by the manner in which she once more entered into conversation with the Prophet.

"Mr. Vivian," she said, with a complete change of demeanour to girlish geniality and impulsiveness, "I'm going to confide in you. I'm going to thrown myself upon your mercy."

The Prophet blinked with amazement, like a martyr who suddenly finds himself s.n.a.t.c.hed from the rack and laid upon a plush divan with a satin cushion under his head.

"I'm going to trust you," Lady Enid went on, emphasising the two p.r.o.nouns.

"Many thanks," said the Prophet, unoriginally.

She was sitting on a square piece of furniture which the Marquis of Glome called an "Aberdeen lean-to." She now spread herself out upon it in the easy att.i.tude of one who is about to converse intimately for some centuries, and proceeded.

"I daresay you know, Mr. Vivian, that people always call me a very sensible sort of girl."

The Prophet remembered his grandmother's remark about Lady Enid.

"I know they do," he a.s.sented, trying not to think of five o'clock.

"What do they mean by that, Mr. Vivian?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"I say what do they mean by a sensible sort of girl?"

"Why, I suppose--"

"I'm going to tell you," she interrupted him. "They mean a sort of girl who likes fresh air, washes her face with yellow soap, sports dogskin gloves, drives in an open cart in preference to a shut brougham, enjoys a cold tub and Whyte Melville's novels, laughs at ghosts and cries over 'Misunderstood,' considers the Bishop of London a deity and the Albert Memorial a gem of art, would wear a neat Royal fringe in her grave, and a straw hat and shirt on the Judgment Day if she were in the country for it--walks with the guns, sings 'Home, Sweet Home' in the evening after dinner to her bald-headed father, thinks the _Daily Mail_ an intellectual paper, the Royal Academy an uplifting inst.i.tution, the British officer a demi-G.o.d with a heart of gold in a body of steel, and the road from Calais to Paris the way to heaven. That's what they mean by a sensible sort of girl, isn't it?"

"I daresay it is," said the Prophet, endeavouring not to feel as if he were sitting with a dozen or two of very practised stump orators.

"Yes, and that's what they think I am."

"And aren't you?" inquired the Prophet.

Lady Enid drew herself upon the Aberdeen lean-to.

"No," she said decisively, "I'm not. I'm a Miss Minerva Partridge."

"Well, but what is that?" asked the Prophet, with all the air of a man inquiring about some savage race.

"That's the secret--"

"Oh, I beg your pardon!"

"That I'm going to tell you now, because I trust you--"

Again the p.r.o.nouns were emphasised, and the Prophet thought how difficult it would be to keep his oath.

"And because I know now that you're silly too."

The Prophet jumped, though not for joy.

"I've been Miss Minerva Partridge for--wait a moment, I must look."

She got up, went to a writing table, opened a drawer in it, and took out a large red book and turned its leaves.

"My diary," she explained. "It's foolish to keep one, isn't it?"

Her intonation so obviously called for an affirmative that the Prophet felt constrained to reply,--

"Very foolish indeed."

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."