Three days later Mr. Prohack came home late with his daughter in the substituted car.  He had accompanied Sissie to Putney for the final disposition of the affairs of the dance-studio, and had witnessed her blighting politeness to Eliza Brating and Eliza Brating’s blighting politeness to her.  The last kiss between these two young women would have desolated the heart of any man whose faith in human nature was less strong than Mr. Prohack’s.  “I trust that the excellent Eliza is not disfigured for life,” he had observed calmly in the automobile.  “What are you talking about, father?” Sissie had exclaimed, suspicious.  “I was afraid her lips might be scorched.  You feel no pain yourself, my child, I hope?” He made the sound of a kiss.  After this there was no more conversation in the car during the journey.  Arrived home, Sissie said nonchalantly that she was going to bed.

“Burn my lips first,” Mr. Prohack implored.

“Father!” said she, having kissed him.  “You are simply terrible.”

“I am a child,” he replied.  “And you are my grandmother.”

“You wait till I give you your next dancing-lesson,” Sissie retorted, turning and threatening him from the stairs.  “It won’t be as mild as this afternoon’s.”

He smiled, giving an imitation of the sphinx.  He was happy enough as mortals go.  His wife was perhaps a little better.  And he was gradually launching himself into an industrious career of idleness.  Also, he had broken the ice,—­the ice, that is to say, of tuition in dancing.  Not a word had been spoken abroad in the house about the first dancing-lesson.  He had had it while Mrs. Prohack was, in theory at least, paying calls; at any rate she had set forth in the car.  Mr. Prohack and Sissie had rolled up the drawing-room carpet and moved the furniture themselves.  Mr. Prohack had unpacked the gramophone in person.  They had locked the drawing-room door.  At the end of the lesson they had relaid the carpet and replaced the furniture and enclosed the gramophone and unlocked the door, and Mr. Prohack had issued from the drawing-room like a criminal.  The thought in his mind had been that he was no end of a dog and of a brave dog at that.  Then he sneered at himself for thinking such a foolish thought.  After all, what was there in learning to dance?  But the sneer was misplaced.  His original notion that he had done something courageous and wonderful was just a notion.

The lesson had favoured the new nascent intimacy with his daughter.  Evidently she was a born teacher as well as a born dancer.  He perceived in two minutes how marvellous her feet were.  She guided him with pressures light as a feather.  She allowed herself to be guided with an intuitive responsiveness that had to be felt to be believed.  Her exhortations were delicious, her reprimands exquisite, her patience was infinite.  Further, she said that he had what she called “natural rhythm,” and would learn easily and satisfactorily.  Best of all,