“Surely,” said Mr. Prohack hesitatingly, “surely you didn’t mention Sissie in your letter to me!”

“Naturally I didn’t, my dear fellow,” answered Mr. Bishop.  “I wrote to her separately, knowing the position taken up by the modern young lady.  And she telephoned me yesterday afternoon that she and Morfey would be delighted to come.”

“Then if you know so much about the modern young lady,” said Eve, with bright and perfect self-possession, “you wouldn’t expect my daughter to arrive with her parents, would you?”

Mr. Softly Bishop laughed.

“You’re only putting off the evil moment,” said Mr. Prohack in the silence of his mind to Eve, and similarly he said to Mr. Softly Bishop: 

“I do wish you wouldn’t call me ‘my dear fellow.’  True, I come to your lunch, but I’m not your dear fellow and I never will be.”

“I invited your son also, Prohack,” continued Mr. Bishop.  “Together with Miss Winstock or Warburton—­she appears to have two names—­to make a pair, to make a pair you understand.  But unfortunately he’s been suddenly called out of town on the most urgent business.”  As he uttered these last words Mr. Bishop glanced in a peculiar manner partly at his nose and partly at Mr. Prohack; it was a singular feat of glancing, and Mr. Prohack uncomfortably wondered what it meant, for Charles lay continually on Mr. Prohack’s chest, and at the slightest provocation Charles would lie more heavily than usual.

“Am I right in assuming that the necklace affair is satisfactorily settled?” Mr. Softly Bishop enquired, his spectacles gleaming and blinking at the adornment of Eve’s neck.

“You are,” said Eve.  “But it wouldn’t be advisable for you to be too curious about details.”

Her aplomb, her sangfroid, astounded Mr. Prohack—­and relieved him.  With an admirable ease she went on to congratulate their host upon his engagement, covering him with petals of flattery and good wishes.  Mr. Prohack could scarcely recognise his wife, and he was not sure that he liked her new worldiness quite as much as her old ingenuous and sometimes inarticulate simplicity.  At any rate she was a changed woman.  He steadied himself, however, by a pertinent reflection:  she was always a changed woman.

Then Sissie and Ozzie appeared, looking as though they had been married for years.  Mr. Prohack’s heart began to beat.  Ignoring Mr. Softly Bishop, Sissie embraced her mother with prim affectionateness, and Eve surveyed her daughter with affectionate solicitude.  Mr. Prohack felt that he would never know what had passed between these two on the previous day, for they were a pair of sphinxes when they chose, and he was too proud to encourage confidences from Ozzie.  Whatever it might have been it was now evidently buried deep, and the common life, after a terrible pause, had resumed.

“How do you do, Miss Prohack,” said Mr. Softly Bishop, greeting.  “So glad you could come.”