e instrument. She was a fat, youngish woman,
in a parlourmaid's cap and apron, and Mr. Prohack had a few days earlier
had a glimpse of her seated in his own hall waiting for a package of
Sissie's clothes.

"Very sorry, sir," said she, turning her head negligently from the
gramophone and eyeing him seriously. "I'm afraid you can't go in if
you're not in evening dress." Evidently from her firm, polite voice, she
knew just what she was about, did that young woman. She added: "The
rule's very strict on Fridays."

At the same moment a bell rang once. The woman immediately released the
catch of the gramophone and lowered the needle on to the disc, and Mr.
Prohack heard music, but not from the cubicle. There was a round hole in
the match-board partition, and the trumpet attachment of the gramophone
disappeared beyond the hole.

"This affair is organised," thought Mr. Prohack, decidedly impressed by
the ingenuity of the musical arrangement and by the promptness of the
orchestral director in obeying the signal of the bell.

"My name is Prohack," said he. "I'm Miss Prohack's father."

This important announcement ought to have startled the sangfroid of the
guardian, but it did not. She merely said, with a slight mechanical
smile:

"As soon as this dance is over, sir, I'll let Miss Prohack know she's
wanted." She did not say: "Sir, a person of your eminence is above
rules. Go right in."

Two girls in all-enveloping dark cloaks entered behind him.
"Good-evening, Lizzie," one of them greeted the guardian. And Lizzie's
face relaxed into a bright genuine smile.

"Good-evening, miss. Good-evening, miss."

The two girls vanished rustlingly through a door over which was hung a
piece of cardboard with the written words: "Ladies' cloakroom." In a few
moments they emerged, white and fluffy apparitions, eager,
self-conscious, and they vanished through another door. Mr. Prohack
judged from their bridling and from their whispers to each other that
they belonged to the class which ministers to the shopping-class. He
admitted that they looked very nice and attractive; but he had the
sensation of having blundered into a queer, hitherto unknown world, and
of astonishment and qualms that his daughter should be a ruler in that
world.

Lizzie stood up and peeped through a little square window in the
match-boarding. As soon as she had finished peeping Mr. Prohack took
liberty to peep also, and the dance-studio was revealed to him. Somehow