“That’s strange,” said Mr. Prohack.  “I hear he’s in London.”

“He most positively isn’t in London,” said Sir Paul.  “He’s not coming back until November.”

“Then that shows how little the evidence of the senses can be relied upon,” remarked Mr. Prohack gently.  “According to the hall-porter he called here for me a few minutes ago, and he may call again.”

The banker grunted.  “The deuce he did!  Does that mean he’s in some fresh trouble, I wonder?”

At the same moment a page-girl, the smart severity of whose uniform was mitigated by a pig-tail and a bow of ribbon, approached Mr. Prohack’s chair, and, bending her young head to his ear, delivered to him with the manner of a bearer of formidable secrets: 

“Mr. Bishop to see you, sir.”

“There he is!” exclaimed Mr. Prohack.  “Now he’s bound to want lunch.  Why on earth can’t we bring guests in here?  Waitress, have the lunch I’ve ordered served in the guests’ dining-room, please....  No doubt Bishop and I’ll see you chaps upstairs later.”

He went off to greet and welcome Bishop, full of joy at the prospect of tasting anew the rich personality of his old friend.  It is true that he had a qualm about the expense of standing Bishop a lunch—­a fellow who relished his food and drink and could distinguish between the best and the second best; but on the other hand he could talk very freely to Bishop concerning the crisis in which he found himself; and he knew that Bishop would not allow Bishop’s affairs, however troublesome they might be, unduly to bother him.

Bishop was not on the bench in the hall where visitors were appointed to wait.  Only one man was on the bench, a spectacled, red-faced person.  Mr. Prohack glanced about.  Then the page-girl pointed to the spectacled person, who jumped up and approached Mr. Prohack somewhat effusively.

“How d’ye do, Prohack?”

“Well, Bishop!” Mr. Prohack responded.  “It’s you!”

It was another Bishop, a Bishop whom he had forgotten, a Bishop who had resigned from the club earlier and disappeared.  Mr. Prohack did not like him.  Mr. Prohack said to himself:  “This fellow is after something, and I always knew he was an adventurer.”

“Funny feeling it gives you to be asked to wait in the hall of a club that you used to belong to!” said Bishop.

The apparently simple words, heavy with sinister significance, sank like a depth-charge into Mr. Prohack’s consciousness.

“Among other things,” said Mr. Prohack to himself, “this fellow is very obviously after a free lunch.”

Now Mr. Prohack suffered from a strange form of insincerity, which he had often unsuccessfully tried to cure, partly because it advantaged unsympathetic acquaintances at his expense, and partly because his wife produced unanswerable arguments against it with mortal effect.  Although an unconceited man (as men go), and a very honest man, he could not help pretending to like people whom he did not like.  And he pretended with a histrionic skill that deceived everybody—­sometimes even himself.  There may have been some good-nature in this moral twist of his; but he well knew that it originated chiefly in three morbid desires,—­the desire to please, the desire to do the easiest thing, and the desire to nourish his reputation for amiability.