.

"Don't you know, Mr. Bishop?--No, of course you don't. We ought to have
told you. My daughter is now Mrs. Morfey. You see in our family we all
have such a horror of the conventional wedding and reception and formal
honeymoon and so on, that we decided the marriage should be strictly
private, with no announcements of any kind. I really think you are the
first to know. One thing I've always liked about actresses is that in
the afternoon you can read of them getting married that day and then go
and see them play the same evening. It seems to me so sensible. And as
we were all of the same opinion at our house, especially Sissie and her
father, there was no difficulty."

"Upon my word," said Mr. Softly Bishop shaking hands with Ozzie. "I
believe I shall follow your example."

Mr. Prohack sank into a chair.

"I feel rather faint," he said. "Bishop, do you think we might have a
cocktail or so?"

"My dear fellow, how thoughtless of me! Of course! Waiter! Waiter!" As
Mr. Bishop swung round in the direction of waiters Eve turned in alarm
to Mr. Prohack. Mr. Prohack with much deliberation winked at her, and
she drew back. "Yes," he murmured. "You'll be the death of me one day,
and then you'll be sorry."

"I don't think a cocktail is at all a good thing for you, dad," Sissie
calmly observed.

The arrival of Miss Fancy provided a distraction more agreeable than Mr.
Prohack thought possible; he positively welcomed the slim, angular
blonde, for she put an end to a situation which, prolonged another
moment, would have resulted in a severe general constraint.

"You're late, my dear," said Mr. Softly Bishop, firmly.

The girl's steely blue-eyed glance shot out at the greeting, but seemed
to drop off flatly from Mr. Bishop's adamantine spectacles like a bullet
from Bessemer armour.

"Am I?" she replied uncertainly, in her semi-American accent. "Where's
the ladies' cloakroom of this place?"

"I'll show you," said Mr. Bishop, with no compromise.

The encounter was of the smallest, but it made Mr. Prohack suspect that
perhaps Mr. Bishop was not after all going into the great warfare of
matrimony blindly or without munitions.

"I've taken the opportunity to tell Miss Fancy that she will be the only
unmarried woman, at my lunch," said Mr. Bishop amusingly, when he
returned from piloting his beloved. A neat fellow, beyond question!

Miss Fancy had apparently to re-dress herself, judging from the length
of her absence. The c