He had important business to transact with tradesmen.  He could not do it.  On leaving home he had not decided whether he would lunch domestically or at the Grand Babylon.  He now perceived that he could do neither.  He would lunch at one of his clubs.  No!  He could not bring himself to lunch at either club.  He could face nobody.  He resembled a man who was secretly carrying a considerable parcel of high explosive.  He wandered until he could wander no more, and then he entered a tea-shop that was nearly full of young girls.  It was a new world to him.  He saw “Mutton pie 8d” on the menu and ordered it haphazard.  He discovered to his astonishment that he was hungry.  Having eaten the mutton pie, he ordered a second one, and ate it.  The second mutton pie seemed to endow the eater with the faculty of vision—­a result which perhaps no other mutton pie had ever before in the whole annals of eating achieved.  He felt much better.  He was illuminated by a large, refreshing wisdom, which thus expressed itself in his excited brain: 

“After all, I suppose it’s not the first or the only instance of a girl being kissed by a man.  Similar incidents must occur quite often in the history of the human race.”

IV

When he returned home his house seemed to be pitiably small, cramped, and lacking in rich ornament; it seemed to be no sort of a house for a man with twenty thousand a year.  But he was determined to love his house at all costs, and never to leave it.  The philosopher within himself told him that happiness does not spring from large houses built with hands.  And his own house was bright that afternoon; he felt as soon as he entered it that it was more bright than usual.  The reason was immediately disclosed.  Sissie was inside it.  She had come for some belongings and to pay a visit to her mother.

“My word!” she greeted her father in the drawing-room, where she was strumming while Eve leaned lovingly on the piano.  “My word!  We are fine with our new private secretary!”

Not a sign on that girl’s face, nor in her demeanour, that she had an amorous secret, that something absolutely unprecedented had happened to her only a few hours earlier!  The duplicity of women astonished even the philosopher in Mr. Prohack.

“Will she mention it or won’t she?” Mr. Prohack asked himself; and then began to equal Sissie in duplicity by demanding of his women in a tone of raillery what they thought of the new private secretary.  He reflected that he might as well know the worst at once.

“She’ll do,” said Sissie gaily, and Eve said:  “She seems very willing to oblige.”

“Ah!” Mr. Prohack grew alert.  “She’s been obliging you already, has she?”

“Well,” said Eve.  “It was about the new house—­”

“What new house?”

“But you know, darling.  Charlie mentioned it to you last night, and I told you that I was going to look at it this morning.”