But the queer fellow, though touched by her attention, did not like her being so glad that he had gone to bed.  The alleged philosopher would have preferred her to express some dependence upon his manly support in what was for her a tremendous event.

“I feel I shall sleep,” he lied.

“I’m sure you will, darling,” she agreed.  “Don’t you think it’s all been a terrific success?” she asked naively.

He answered, smiling: 

“I’m dying to see The Daily Picture to-morrow.  I think I shall tell the newsagent in future only to deliver it on the days when you’re in it.”

“Don’t be silly,” she said, too pleased with herself, however, to resent his irony.  She was clothed in mail that night against all his shafts.

He admitted, what he had always secretly known, that she was an elementary creature; she would have been just as at home in the Stone Age as in the twentieth century—­and perhaps more at home. (Was Lady Massulam equally elementary?  No?  Yes?) Still, Eve was necessary to him.

Only, up to a short while ago, she had been his complement; whereas now he appeared to be her complement.  He, the philosopher and the source of domestic wisdom, was fully aware, in a superior and lofty manner, that she was the eternal child deceived by toys, gewgaws, and illusions; nevertheless he was only her complement, the indispensable husband and payer-out.  She was succeeding without any brain-work from him.  He noticed that she was not wearing the pearls he had given her.  No doubt she had merely forgotten at the last moment to put them on.  She was continually forgetting them and leaving them about.  But this negligent woman was the organiser in chief of the great soiree!  Well, if it had succeeded, she was lucky.

“I must run off,” said she, starting up, busy, proud, falsely calm, the general of a victorious army as the battle draws to a close.  She embraced him again, and he actually felt comforted....  She was gone.

“As I grow older,” he reflected, “I’m hanged if I don’t understand life less and less.”

* * * * *

He was listening to the distant rhythm of the music when he mistily comprehended that there was no music and that the sounds in his ear were not musical.  He could not believe that he had been asleep and had awakened, but the facts were soon too much for his delusion and he said with the air of a discoverer:  “I’ve been asleep,” and turned on the light.

There were voices and footsteps in the corridors or on the landing,—­whispers, loud and yet indistinct talking, tones indicating that the speakers were excited, if not frightened, and that their thoughts had been violently wrenched away from the pursuit of pleasure.  His watch showed two o’clock.  The party was over, the last automobile had departed, and probably even the tireless Eliza Fiddle was asleep in her new home.  Next Mr. Prohack noticed that the door of his room was ajar.