fear--the fear lest he might lack the
courage to wear them. In a nightmare he saw himself putting them on in
his bedroom and proceeding downstairs to breakfast, and then,
panic-stricken, rushing back to the bedroom to change into one of his
old neckties.

And when he had bought neckties he apprehended that neckties without
shirts were like butter without bread, and he bought shirts. And then he
surmised that shirts without collars would be indecent. And when he had
bought collars a still small voice told him that the logical foundation
of all things was socks, and that really he had been trying to build a
house from the fourth story downwards. Fortunately he had less
hesitation about the socks, for he could comfort himself with the
thought that socks did not jump to the eye as neckties did, and that by
constant care their violence might even be forever concealed from the
gaze of his household. He sighed with relief at the end of the sock
episode. But he had forgotten braces, as to which he surrendered
unconditionally to the frock-coated judge. He brooked the most
astounding braces, for none but Eve would see them, and he could
intimidate Eve.

"Shall we make you a quarter of a dozen pairs to measure, sir?"

This extraordinary question miraculously restored all Mr. Prohack's
vanished aplomb. That at the end of the greatest war in the history of
the earth, amid decapitated empires and cities of starvation, braces
should be made to measure,--this was too much for Mr. Prohack, who had
not dreamed that braces ever had been made to measure. It shocked him
back into sense.

"_No!_" he said coldly, and soon afterwards left the shop.

Miss Winstock, in the car, sat for the statue of wistful melancholy.

"Heavens!" breathed Mr. Prohack to himself. "The little thing is taking
me seriously. With all her experience of the queer world, and all her
initiative and courage, she is taking me seriously!" He was touched; his
irony became sympathetic, and he thought: "How young the young are!"

Her smile as he rejoined her had pathos in it. The totality of her was
delicious.

"You cannot be all bad, Miss Winstock," said he to her, after
instructing the chauffeur, "because nobody is. You are undisciplined.
You do wild and rash things--you have already accomplished several this
morning. But you have righteous instincts, though not often enough. Of
course, with one word to the insurance company I could save you. The
difficulty is th