He was on the edge of felicity in his miserableness when his indefatigable women entered, all smiles.  They had indeed been out, and they were still arrayed for the street.  On by one they removed or cast aside such things as gloves, hats, coats, bags, until the study began to bear some resemblance to a boudoir.  Mr. Prohack, though cheerfully grumbling at this, really liked it, for he was of those who think that nothing furnishes a room so well as a woman’s hat, provided it be not permanently established.

Sissie even took off one shoe, on the plea that it hurt her, and there the trifling article lay, fragile, gleaming and absurd.  Mr. Prohack appreciated it even more than the hats.  He understood, perhaps better than ever before, that though he had a vast passion for his wife, there was enough emotion left in him to nourish an affection almost equally vast for his daughter.  She was a proud piece, was that girl, and he was intensely proud of her.  Nor did a realistic estimate of her faults of character seem in the least to diminish his pride in her.  She had distinction; she had race.  Mimi might possibly be able to make rings round her in the pursuit of any practical enterprise, but her mere manner of existing from moment to moment was superior to Mimi’s.  The simple-minded parent was indeed convinced at heart that the world held no finer young woman than Sissie Prohack.  He reflected with satisfaction:  “She knows I’m old, but there’s something young in me that forces her to treat me as young; and moreover she adores me.”  He also reflected:  “Of course they’re after something, these two.  I can see a put-up job in their eyes.”  Ah!  He was ready for them, and the sensation of being ready for them was like a tonic to him, raising him momentarily above misery.

“You look much better, Arthur,” said Eve, artfully preparing.

“I am,” said he.  “I’ve had a bath.”

“Had you given up baths, dad?” asked Sissie, with a curl of the lips.

“No!  But I mean I’ve had two baths.  One in water and the other in resignation.”

“How dull!”

“I’ve been thinking about the arrangements for the wedding,” Eve started in a new, falsely careless tone, ignoring the badinage between her husband and daughter, which she always privately regarded as tedious.

There it was!  They had come to worry him about the wedding.  He had not recovered from one social martyrdom before they were plotting to push him into another.  They were implacable, insatiable, were his women.  He got up and walked about.

“Now, dad,” Sissie addressed him.  “Don’t pretend you aren’t interested.”  And then she burst into the most extraordinary laughter—­laughter that bordered on the hysterical—­and twirled herself round on the shod foot.  Her behaviour offended Eve.

“Of course if you’re going on like that, Sissie, I warn you I shall give it all up.  After all, it won’t be my wedding.”