Mr. Prohack understood. Miss Fancy was uncompromisingly jealous of her half-sister's renown. To outdo that renown was the main object of her life, and Mr. Softly Bishop's claim on her lay in the fact that he had shown her how to accomplish her end and was taking charge of the arrangements. Mr. Softly Bishop was her trainer and her manager; he had dazzled her by the variety and ingenuity of his resourceful schemes; and his power over her was based on a continual implied menace that if she did not strictly obey all his behests she would fail to realise her supreme desire. And when Mr. Softly Bishop gradually drew Ozzie into a technical tête-à-tête, Mr. Prohack understood further why Ozzie had been invited to the feast. Upon certain branches of Mr. Bishop's theatrical schemes Ozzie was an acknowledged expert, and Mr. Bishop was obtaining, for the price of a luncheon, the fruity knowledge and wisdom acquired by Ozzie during long years of close attention to business. For Mr. Prohack it was an enthralling scene. The luncheon closed gorgeously upon the finest cigars and cigarettes, the finest coffee, and the finest liqueurs that the unique establishment could provide. Sissie refused every allurement except coffee, and Miss Fancy was permitted nothing but coffee. "Do not forget your throat, my dear," Mr. Softly Bishop authoritatively interjected into Miss Fancy's circumstantial recital of the expensiveness of the bouquets which had been hurled at her in the New National Theatre at Washington. "And by the way," (looking at his watch), "do not forget the appointment with the elocutionist." "But aren't you coming with me?" demanded Miss Fancy alarmed. Already she was learning the habit of helplessness--so attractive to men and so useful to them. These remarks broke up the luncheon party, which all the guests assured the deprecating host had been perfectly delightful, with the implied addition that it had also constituted the crown and summit of their careers. Eve and Sissie were prodigious in superlatives to such an extent that Mr. Prohack began to fear for Mr. Softly Bishop's capacity to assimilate the cruder forms of flattery. His fear, however, was unnecessary. When the host and his beloved departed Miss Fancy was still recounting tit-bits of her biography. "But I'll tell you the rest another time," she cried from the moving car. She had emphatically won the second battle. From the first blow she had never even looked like losing. And she had shown no mercy, quite properly following the maxim that war is war. Eve and Sissie seemed to rise with difficulty to their knees, after the ruthless adversary, tired of standing on their prostrate form, had scornfully walked away. III "Well!" sighed Mrs. Prohack, with the maximum of expressiveness, glancing at her daughter as one woman of the world at another. They were lingering, as it were convalescent after the severe attack and defeat, in the foyer of the hotel.