Having entered his house as it were surreptitiously, and avoided his children, Mr. Prohack peeped through the half-open door between the conjugal bedroom and the small adjoining room, which should Lave been a dressing-room, but which Mrs. Prohack styled her boudoir.  He espied her standing sideways in front of the long mirror, her body prettily curved and her head twisted over her shoulder so that she could see three-quarters of her back in the mirror.  An attitude familiar to Mr. Prohack and one that he liked!  She was wearing the Chinese garment of the morning, but he perceived that she had done something to it.  He made a sharp noise with the handle of the door.  She shrieked and started, and as soon as she had recovered she upbraided him, and as soon as she had upbraided him she asked him anxiously what he thought of the robe, explaining that it was really too good for a dressing-gown, that with careful treatment it would wear for ever, that it could not have been bought now for a hundred pounds or at least eighty, that it was in essence far superior to many frocks worn by women who had more money and less taste than herself, that she had transformed it into a dinner-dress for quiet evenings at home, and that she had done this as part of her part of the new economy scheme.  It would save all her other frocks, and as for a dressing-gown, she had two old ones in her reserves.

Mr. Prohack kissed her and told her to sit down on the little sofa.

“To see the effect of it sitting down?” she asked.

“If you like,” said he.

“Then you don’t care for it?  You think it’s ridiculous?” said she anxiously, when she had sat down.

He replied, standing in front of her: 

“You know that Oxford Concise Dictionary that I bought just before the war?  Where is it?”

“Arthur!” she said.  “What’s the matter with you?  You look so queer.  I suppose the dictionary’s where you keep it. I never touch it.”

“I want you to be sure to remind me to cross the word ‘economy’ out of it to-night.  In fact I think I’d better tear out the whole page.”

“Arthur!” she exclaimed again.  “Are you ill?  Has anything serious happened?  I warn you I can’t stand much more to-day.”

“Something very serious has happened,” answered the incorrigible Mr. Prohack.  “It may be all for the best; it may be all for the worst.  Depends how you look at it.  Anyway I’m determined to tell you.  Of course I shouldn’t dream of telling anybody else until I’d told you.”  He seated himself by her side.  There was just space enough for the two of them on the sofa.

“Oh, dear!” sighed Mrs. Prohack, with apprehension, and instinctively she stretched her arm out and extinguished one of the lights.