ents of the night had happened exclusively inside Mr. Prohack's
head. Nor were they traceable to the demeanour of his wife when he
returned home from the studio. She had mysteriously behaved to him as
though nocturnal excursions to disgraceful daughters in remote quarters
of London were part of his daily routine. She had been very sweet and
very incurious. Whereon Mr. Prohack had said to himself: "She has some
diplomatic reason for being an angel." And even if she had not been an
angel, even if she had been the very reverse of an angel, Mr. Prohack
would not have minded, and his night would not have been thereby upset;
for he regarded her as a beautiful natural phenomenon is regarded by a
scientist, lovingly and wonderingly, and he was incapable of being
irritated for more than a few seconds by anything that might be done or
said by this forest creature of the prime who had strayed charmingly
into the twentieth century. He was a very fortunate husband.

No! The eventfulness of the night originated in reflection upon the
relations between Sissie and Ozzie Morfey. If thoughts could take
physical shape and solidity, the events of the night would have amounted
to terrible collisions and catastrophes in the devil-haunted abysses of
Mr. Prohack's brain. The forces of evil were massacring all opponents
between three and four a.m. It was at this period Mr. Prohack was
convinced that Sissie, in addition to being an indescribably heartless
daughter, was a perfect fool hoodwinked by a perfect ass, and that
Ozzie's motive in the affair was not solely or chiefly admiration for
Sissie, but admiration of the great fortune which, he had learnt, had
fallen into the lap of Sissie's father. After five o'clock, according to
the usual sequence, the forces of evil lost ground, and at six-thirty,
when the oblong of the looking-glass glimmered faintly in the dawn, Mr.
Prohack said roundly: "I am an idiot," and went to sleep.

"Now, darling," said Eve when he emerged from the bathroom. "Don't waste
any more time. I want you to give me your opinion about something
downstairs."

"Child," said Mr. Prohack. "What on earth do you mean--'wasting time'?
Haven't you insisted, and hasn't your precious doctor insisted, that I
must read the papers for an hour in bed after I've had my breakfast in
bed? Talk about 'wasting time' indeed!"

"Yes, of course darling," Eve concurred, amazingly angelic. "I don't
mean you've been wasting time; only I don't want