Eve, Sissie (who had called), and Machin—­they were all in a state of felicity, for the double reason that Sissie was engaged to be married, and that the household was to move into a noble mansion.  Machin saw herself at the head of a troup of sub-parlourmaids and housemaids and tweenies, and foretold that she would stand no nonsense from butlers.  They all treated Mr. Prohack as a formidable and worshipped tyrant, whose smile was the sun and whose frown death, and who was the fount of wisdom and authority.  They knew that he wanted to be irritated, and they gave him no chance to be irritated.  Their insight into his psychology was uncanny.  They knew that he was beaten on the main point, and with their detestable feminine realism they exquisitely yielded on all the minor points.  Eve, fresh as a rose, bent over him and bedewed him, and said that she was going out and that Sissie had gone again.

When he was alone he rang the bell for Machin as though the bell had done him an injury.

“What time is it?”

“Eleven o’clock, sir.”

“Eleven o’clock!  Good God!  Why hasn’t Miss Warburton come?”

As if Machin was responsible for Miss Warburton!...  No!  Mr. Prohack was not behaving nicely, and it cannot be hidden that he lacked the grandeur of mind which distinguishes most of us.

“Miss Warburton was here before ten o’clock, sir.”

“Then why hasn’t she come up?”

“She was waiting for orders, sir.”

“Send her up immediately.”

“Certainly, sir.”

Miss Warburton was the fourth angel—­an angel with another spick-and-span blouse, and the light of devotion in her eyes and the sound of it in her purling voice.

“Good morning,” the gruff brute started.  “Did I hear the telephone-bell just now?”

“Yes, sir.  Doy and Doy have telephoned to say that Mr. Charles Prohack has just been in to see them, and they’ve referred him to you, and—­and—­”

“And what?  And what?  And what?” (A machine-gun.)

“They said he was extremely unpleasant.”

Instinctively Mr. Prohack threw away shame.  Mimi was his minion.  He treated her as an Oriental tyrant might treat the mute guardian of the seraglio, and told her everything,—­that Charlie had forestalled them in the matter of the drains of the noble mansion, that Charlie had determined to destroy Doy and Doy, that he, Mr. Prohack, was caught in a trap, that there was the devil to pay, and that the finest lies that ingenuity could invent would have to be uttered.  He abandoned all pretence of honesty and uprightness.  Mimi showed no surprise whatever, nor was she apparently in the least shocked.  She seemed to regard the affair as a quite ordinary part of the day’s routine.  Her insensitive calm frightened Mr. Prohack.

“Now we must think of something,” said the iniquitous monster.

“I don’t see that there need be any real difficulty,” Mimi replied. “You didn’t know anything about my plot with Doy and Doy.  I got the notion—­quite wrongly—­that you preferred not to have the house, and I acted as I did through an excess of zeal.  I must confess the plot.  I alone am to blame, and I admit that what I did was quite inexcusable.”