“Arthur, isn’t it wicked!”

She examined afresh the necklace.

By the time they were all three in the car, Mr. Prohack had become aware of the fact that in Sissie’s view he ought to have bought two necklaces while he was about it.

Sissie’s trunks were on the roof of the car.  She had decided to take up residence at the Grand Babylon that very night.  The rapidity and the uncontrollability of events made Mr. Prohack feel dizzy.

“I hope you’ve brought some money, darling,” said his wife.

II

“Lend me some money, will you?” murmured Mr. Prohack lightly to his splendid son, after he had glanced at the bill for Eve’s theatre dinner at the Grand Babylon.  Mr. Prohack had indeed brought some money with him, but not enough.  “Haven’t got any,” said Charlie, with equal lightness.  “Better give me the bill.  I’ll see to it.”  Whereupon Charlie signed the bill, and handed the bowing waiter five ten shilling notes.

“That’s not enough,” said Mr. Prohack.

“Not enough for the tip.  Well, it’ll have to be.  I never give more than ten per cent.”

Mr. Prohack strove to conceal his own painful lack of worldliness.  He had imagined that he had in his pockets heaps of money to pay for a meal for a handful of people.  He was mistaken; that was all, and the incident had no importance, for a few pounds more or less could not matter in the least to a gentleman of his income.  Yet he felt guilty of being a waster.  He could not accustom himself to the scale of expenditure.  Barely in the old days could he have earned in a week the price of the repast consumed now in an hour.  The vast apartment was packed with people living at just that rate of expenditure and seeming to think naught of it.  “But do two wrongs make a right?” he privately demanded of his soul.  Then his soul came to the rescue with its robust commonsense and replied: 

“Perhaps two wrongs don’t make a right, but five hundred wrongs positively must make a right.”  And he felt better.

And suddenly he understood the true function of the magnificent orchestra that dominated the scene.  It was the function of a brass band at a quack-dentist’s booth in a fair,—­to drown the cries of the victims of the art of extraction.

“Yes,” he reflected, full of health and carelessness.  “This is a truly great life.”

The party went off in two automobiles, his own and Lady Massulam’s.  Cars were fighting for room in front of the blazing facade of the Metropolitan Theatre, across which rose in fire the title of the entertainment, Smack Your Face, together with the names of Asprey Chown and Eliza Fiddle.  Car after car poured out a contingent of glorious girls and men and was hustled off with ferocity by a row of gigantic and implacable commissionaires.  Mr. Oswald Morfey walked straight into the building at the head of his guests.  Highly expensive persons were humbling themselves at the little window of the box office, but Ozzie held his course, and officials performed obeisances which stopped short only at falling flat on their faces at the sight of him.  Tickets were not for him.