“Oh! That!” Mr. Prohack ejaculated disdainfully.

“I’ve seen it.  I’ve been all over it, and it’s simply lovely.  I never saw anything equal to it.”

“Of course!”

“And so cheap!”

“Of course!”

“But it’s ripping, dad, seriously.”

“Seriously ripping, it is?  Well, so far as I am concerned I shall let it rip.”

“I rushed back here as soon as I’d seen it,” Eve proceeded, quietly ignoring the last remark.  “But you’d gone out without saying where.  Nobody knew where you’d gone.  It was very awkward, because if we want this house we’ve got to decide at once—­at latest in three days, Charlie says.  Miss Warburton—­that’s her name, isn’t it?—­Miss Warburton had a very bright idea.  She seems to know quite a lot about property.  She thought of the drains.  She said the first thing would be to have the drains inspected, and that if there was any hurry the surveyors ought to be instructed instantly.  She knew some surveyor people, and so she’s gone out to see the agents and get permission from them for the surveyors to inspect, and she’ll see the surveyors at the same time.  She says we ought to have the report by to-morrow afternoon.  She’s very enterprising.”

The enterprisingness of Miss Warburton frightened Mr. Prohack.  She had acted exactly as he would have wished—­only better; evidently she was working out his plot against the house in the most efficient manner.  Yet he was frightened.  So much so that he could find nothing to say except:  “Indeed!”

“You never told me she used to be with Mr. Carrel Quire and is related to the Paulle family,” observed Eve, mingling a mild reproach with joyous vivacity, as if saying:  “Why did you keep this titbit from me?”

“I must now have a little repose,” said Mr. Prohack.

“We’ll leave you,” Eve said, eager to be agreeable.  “You must be tired, you poor dear.  I’m just going out to shop with Sissie.  I’m not sure if I shall be in for tea, but I will be if you think you’ll be lonely.”

“Did you do much entertaining at lunch, young woman?” Mr. Prohack asked.

“Charlie had several people—­men—­but I really don’t know who they were.  And Ozzie Morfey came.  And permit me to inform you that Charlie was simply knocked flat by my qualities as a hostess.  Do you know what he said to me afterwards?  He said:  ’That lunch was a bit of all right, kid.’  Enormous from Charlie, wasn’t it?”

Mother and daughter went out arm in arm like two young girls.  Beyond question they were highly pleased with themselves and the world.  Eve returned after a moment.

“Are you comfortable, dear?  I’ve told Machin you mustn’t on any account be disturbed.  Charlie’s borrowed the car.  We shall get a taxi in the Bayswater Road.”  She bent down and seemed to bury her soft lips in his cheek.  She was beginning to have other interests than himself.  And since she had nothing now to worry about, in a maternal sense, she had become a child.  She was fat—­at any rate nobody could describe her as less than plump—­and over forty, but a child, an exquisite child.  He magnificently let her kiss him.  However, he knew that she knew that she was his sole passion.  She whispered most intimately and persuasively into his ear: