"And you couldn't have telephoned!" "Never thought of it!" "I'll run and tap at Sissie's door and tell her. Ozzie's with her. You'd better go straight to bed." "I'm hungry." Eve made a deprecating and expostulatory noise with her tongue against her upper teeth. "I'll bring you something to eat. At least I'll try to find something," said she. "And are you sleeping here, too? Where?" Mr. Prohack demanded when Eve crept into Charlie's old bedroom with a tray in her hands. "I had to stay. I couldn't leave the girl. I'm sleeping in her old room." "The worst of these kids' rooms," said Mr. Prohack, with an affectation of calm, "is that there are no easy chairs in them. It never struck me before. Look here, you sit on the bed and put the tray down _there_, and I'll occupy this so-called chair. Now, I don't want any sermons. And what is more, I can't eat unless you do. But I tell you I'm very hungry. So would you be, if you'd had my day." "You won't sleep if you eat much." "I don't care if I don't. Is this whiskey? What--bread and cheese? The simple life! I'm not used to it.... Where are you off to?" "There came a letter for you. I brought it along. It's in the other bedroom." "Open it for me, my good child," said Mr. Prohack, his mouth full and his hands occupied, when she returned. She did so. "It seems to me that you'd better read this yourself," she said, naughtily. The letter was from Lady Massulam, signed only with her initials, announcing with a queer brevity that she had suddenly decided to go back at once to her native country to live. "How strange!" exclaimed Mr. Prohack, trying to be airy. "Listen! What do you make of it. You're a woman, aren't you?" "I make of it," said Eve, "that she's running away from you. She's afraid of herself, that's what she is! Didn't I always tell you? Oh! Arthur. How simple you are! But fancy! At her age! Oh, my poor boy! Shall you get over it?" Eve bent forward and kissed the poor boy, who was cursing himself for not succeeding in not being self-conscious. "Rot!" he exploded at last. "I said you were a woman, and by all the gods you are! Give me some more food." He was aware of a very peculiar and unprecedented thrill. He hated to credit Eve's absurd insinuation, but...! And Eve looked at him superiorly, triumphant, sure of him, sure of her everlasting power over him! Yet she was not romantic, and her plump person did not in the least symbolise romance. "I've a piece of news for you," he said, after a pause. "After to-night I've done with women and idleness. I'm going into business. I've bought half of that paper-making concern from your singular son, and I'm going to put it on its legs. I know nothing about paper-making, and I can only hope that the London office is not as dirty and untidy as the works. I'd no idea what works were. The whole thing will be a dreadful worry, and I shall probably make a horrid mess of it, but Charlie seems to think I shan't."