Eve dried her eyes and looked up at him reproachfully with wet cheeks.

“When I think,” said she, “that that girl might so easily have killed me in that accident!  And it would have been all her fault.  And then where would you have been without me?  Where would you have been?  You’d never have got over it.  Never, never!  You simply don’t know what you’d be if you hadn’t got me to look after you!  And you bring her into the house under a false name, and you call it a joke!  No, Arthur.  Frankly I couldn’t have believed it of you.”

Mr. Prohack was affected.  He was not merely dazzled by the new light which she was shedding on things,—­he was emotionally moved....  Would Lady Massulam be capable of such an attitude as Eve’s in such a situation?  The woman was astounding.  She was more romantic than any creature in any bungalow of romantic Frinton.  She beat him.  She rent his heart.  So he said: 

“Well, my beloved infant, if it’s any use to you I’m prepared to admit once for all that I was an ass.  We’ll never have the wretched Mimi in the house again.  I’ll give the word to Charlie.”

“Oh, not at all!” she murmured, smiling sadly.  “I’ve got over it.  And you must think of my dignity.  How ridiculous it would be of me to make a fuss about her being here!  Now, wouldn’t it?  But I’m glad I’ve told you.  I didn’t mean to, really.  I meant never to say a word.  But the fact is I can’t keep anything from you.”

She began to cry again, but differently.  He soothed her, as none but he could, thinking exultantly:  “What a power I have over this chit!” They were perfectly happy.  They lunched alone together, talking exclusively for the benefit of Eve’s majestic butler.  And Mr. Prohack, with that many-sidedness that marked his strange regrettable mind, said to himself at intervals:  “Nevertheless she’s still hiding from me her disgusting scheme for a big reception.  And she knows jolly well I shall hate it.”

CHAPTER XIX

THE RECEPTION

The reception pleased Mr. Prohack as a spectacle, and it cost him almost no trouble.  He announced his decision that it must cost him no trouble, and everybody in the house, and a few people outside it, took him at his word—­which did not wholly gratify him.  Indeed the family and its connections seemed to be conspiring to give him a life of ease.  Responsibilities were lifted from him.  He did not even miss his secretary.  Sissie, who returned home—­by a curious coincidence—­on the very day that Mimi Winstock was transferred to Charlie’s service in the Grand Babylon, performed what she called ‘secretarial stunts’ for her father as and when required.  On the afternoon of the reception, which was timed to begin at 9 p.m., he had an attack of fright, but, by a process well known to public executants, it passed off long before it could develop into stage-fright; and he was quite at ease at 9 p.m.