“Step in and see my home,” she said.

The home consisted of two rooms, one of them a bedroom and the other a sitting-room, together with a small bathroom that was as dark and dank as a cell of the Spanish Inquisition, and another apartment which he took for a cupboard, but which Sissie authoritatively informed him was a kitchen.  The two principal rooms were beyond question beautifully Japanese in the matter of pictures, prints and cabinets—­not otherwise.  They showed much taste; they were unusual and stimulating and jolly and refined; but Mr. Prohack did not fancy that he personally could have lived in them with any striking success.  The lack of space, of light, and of air outweighed all considerations of charm and originality; the upper staircase alone would have ruined any flat for Mr. Prohack.

“Isn’t it lovely!” Sissie encouraged him.

“Yes, it is,” he said feebly.  “Got any servants yet?”

“Oh!  We can’t have servants.  No room for them to sleep, and I couldn’t stand charwomen.  You see, it’s a service flat, so there’s really nothing to do.”

“So I noticed when I came in,” said Mr. Prohack.  “And I suppose you intend to eat at restaurants.  Or do they send up meals from the cellar?”

“We shan’t go to restaurants,” Sissie replied.  “You may be sure of that.  Too expensive for us.  And I don’t count much on the cookery downstairs.  No!  I shall do the cooking in a chaffing-dish—­here it is, you see.  I’ve been taking lessons in chafing-dish cookery every day for weeks, and it’s awfully amusing, it is really.  And it’s much better than ordinary cooking, and cheaper too.  Ozzie loves it.”

Mr. Prohack was touched, and more than ever determined to “be generous in the grand manner and start the simple-minded couple in married life on a scale befitting the general situation.

“You’ll soon be clearing out of this place, I expect,” he began cautiously.

“Clearing out!” Sissie repeated.  “Why should we?  We’ve got all we need.  We haven’t the slightest intention of trying to live as you live.  Ozzie’s very prudent, I’m glad to say, and so am I. We’re going to save hard for a few years, and then we shall see how things are.”

“But you can’t possibly stay on living in a place like this!” Mr. Prohack protested, smiling diplomatically to soften the effect of his words.

“Who can’t?”

“You can’t.”

“But when you say me, do you mean your daughter or Ozzie’s wife?  Ozzie’s lived here for years, and he’s given lots of parties here—­tea-parties, of course.”

Mr. Prohack paused, perceiving that he had put himself in the wrong.

“This place is perfectly respectable,” Sissie continued, “and supposing you hadn’t got all that money from America or somewhere,” she persisted, “would you have said that I couldn’t ’possibly go on living in a place like this?’” She actually imitated his superior fatherly tone.  “You’d have been only too pleased to see me living in a place like this.”