"Two parties at the same time--and in the afternoon! How very odd!"

"They will look very odd, very--in Berkeley Square," responded the
Prophet, in a tone of considerable dejection. "I don't know, I'm sure,
what Mr. Ferdinand and Gustavus will think. Still I've given strict
orders that they are to be let in. What else could I do?"

He gazed at Lady Enid in a demanding manner.

"What else could I possibly do under the circumstances?" he repeated.

"Sit down, dear Mr. Vivian," she answered, with her peculiar Scotch
lassie seductiveness, "and tell me, your sincere friend, what the
circumstances are."

Unluckily her curiosity had led her to overdo persuasion. That cooing
interpolation of "your sincere friend"--too strongly honeyed--suddenly
recalled the Prophet to the fact that Lady Enid was not, and could never
be, his confidante in the matter that obsessed him. He therefore sat
down, but with an abrupt air of indefinite social liveliness, and
exclaimed, not unlike Mr. Robert Green,--

"Well, and how are things going with you, dear Lady Enid?"

She jumped under the transition as under a whip.

"Me! But--these parties you were telling me about?"

But the Prophet remembered his oath. He was a strictly honourable little
man, and never swore carelessly.

"Parties!" he said. "You and I are too old friends to waste our life in
chattering about such London nonsense."

"Then we'll talk of yesterday," said Lady Enid, very firmly.

The Prophet looked rather blank.

"Yes," she repeated. "Yesterday. I've guessed your secret."

"Which one?" he cried, much startled.

"Which?" she said reproachfully. "Oh, Mr. Vivian--and I thought you
trusted in me."

The Prophet was silent. The third daughter of the clergyman had often
made that remark to him when they were nearly engaged. It recalled
bygone memories.

"That's what I thought," she added with pressure.

"I'm sorry," the Prophet murmured, rather obstinately.

"I always think," she continued, with deliberate expansiveness, "that
nearly all the miseries of the world come about from people not trusting
in--in people."

"Or from people trusting in the wrong people. Which is it?" said the
Prophet, not without slyness.

She began to look thin, but checked herself.

"Tell me," she said, "why did you stop me yesterday when I was beginning
to say to Sir Tiglath that I was sure Malkiel was a man and not a
syndicate?"

"Did I stop you?" said the Prophet, artlessly.

"