What especially pleased Mr. Prohack about the whole affair, as he moved to and fro seeking society now instead of avoiding it, was the perfect futility of the affair, save as it affected Eve’s reputation.  He perceived the beauty of costly futility, and he was struck again, when from afar he observed his wife’s conquering mien, by the fact that the reception did not exist for the League, but the League for the reception.  The reception was a real and a resplendent thing; nobody could deny it.  The League was a fog of gush.  The League would be dear at twopence half-penny.  The reception was cheap if it stood him in five hundred pounds.  Eve was an infant; Eve was pleased with gewgaws; but Eve had found herself and he was well content to pay five hundred pounds for the look on her ingenuous face.

“And nothing of this would have happened,” he thought, impressed by the wonders of life, “if in a foolish impulse of generosity I hadn’t once lent a hundred quid to that chap Angmering.”

He descried Lady Massulam in converse with a tall, stout and magnificently dressed gentleman, who bowed deeply and departed as Mr. Prohack approached.

“Who is your fat friend?” said Mr. Prohack.

“He’s from The Daily Picture....  But isn’t this rather a strange way of greeting a guest after so long a separation?  Do you know that I’m in your house and you haven’t shaken hands with me?”

There was a note of intimacy and of challenge in Lady Massulam’s demeanour that pleased Mr. Prohack immensely, and caused him to see that the romance of Frinton was neither factitious nor at an end.  He felt pleasantly, and even thrillingly, that they had something between them.

“Ah!” he returned, consciously exerting his charm.  “I thought you detested our English formality and horrible restraint.  Further, this isn’t my house; it’s my wife’s.”

“Your wife is wonderful!” said Lady Massulam, as though teaching him to appreciate his wife and indicating that she alone had the right thus to teach him,—­the subtlest thing.  “I’ve never seen an evening better done—­reussie.”

“She is rather wonderful,” Mr. Prohack admitted, his tone implying that while putting Lady Massulam in a class apart, he had wit enough to put his wife too in a class apart,—­the subtlest thing.

“I quite expected to meet you again in Frinton,” said Lady Massulam simply.  “How abrupt you are in your methods!”

“Only when it’s a case of self-preservation,” Mr. Prohack responded, gazing at her with daring significance.

“I’m going to talk to Mrs. Prohack,” said Lady Massulam, rising.  But before she left him she murmured confidentially in his ear:  “Where’s your son?”

“Don’t know.  Why?’

“I don’t think he’s come yet.  I’m afraid the poor hoy’s affairs are not very bright.”

“I shall look after him,” said Mr. Prohack, grandly.  A qualm did pierce him at the sound of her words, but he would not be depressed.  He smiled serenely, self-confidently, and said to himself:  “I could look after forty Charleses.”