He said briefly: 

“You needn’t have been.  I wasn’t.”

A little later Eve said to him: 

“Aren’t you going to ask me to dance, Arthur?”

Dancing with Eve was not quite like dancing with Sissie, but they safely survived deadly perils.  And Mr. Prohack perspired in a very healthy fashion.

“You dance really beautifully, dear,” said Eve, benevolently smiling.

After that he cut himself free and roamed about.  He wanted to ask Eliza Fiddle to dance, and also he didn’t want to ask her to dance.  However, he had apparently ceased to exist for her.  Ozzie had introduced him to several radiant young creatures.  He wanted to ask them to dance; but he dared not.  And he was furious with himself.  To dance with one’s daughter and wife was well enough in its way, but it was not the real thing.  It was without salt.  One or two of the radiances glanced at him with inviting eyes, but no, he dared not face it.  He grew gloomy, gloomier.  He thought angrily:  “All this is not for me.  I’m a middle-aged fool, and I’ve known it all along.”  Life lost its savour and became repugnant.  Fatigue punished him, and simultaneously reduced two hundred and fifty thousand pounds to the value of about fourpence.  It was Eve who got him away.

“Home,” he called to Carthew, after Eve and Sissie had said good-bye to Ozzie and stowed themselves into the car.

“Excuse me,” said Sissie.  “You have to deliver me at the Grand Babylon first.”

He had forgotten!  This detour was the acutest torture of the night.  He could no longer bear not to be in bed.  And when, after endless nocturnal miles, he did finally get home and into bed, he sighed as one taken off the rack.  Ah!  The delicious contact with the pillow!

VI

But there are certain persons who, although their minds are logical enough, have illogical bodies.  Mr. Prohack was one of these.  His ridiculous physical organism (as he had once informed Dr. Veiga) was least capable of going to sleep when it was most fatigued.  If Mr. Prohack’s body had retired to bed four hours earlier than in fact it did, Mr. Prohack would have slept instantly and with ease.  Now, despite delicious contact with the pillow, he could not ‘get off.’  And his mind, influenced by his body, grew restless, then excited, then distressingly realistic.  His mind began to ask fundamental questions, questions not a bit original but none the less very awkward.

“You’ve had your first idle day, Mr. Prohack,” said his mind challengingly instead of composing itself to slumber.  “It was organised on scientific lines.  It was carried out with conscientiousness.  And look at you!  And look at me!  You’ve had a few good moments, as for example at the Turkish bath, but do you want a succession of such days?  Could you survive a succession of such days?  Would you even care to acquire a hundred and fifty