He had no anxiety.  Rather he felt quite gay and careless,—­the more so as he had wakened up with the false sensation of complete refreshment produced by short, heavy slumber.  He thought: 

“Whatever has happened, I have had and shall have nothing to do with it, and they must deal with the consequences themselves as best they can.”  And as a measure of precaution against being compromised, he switched off the light.  He heard Eve’s voice, surprisingly near his door: 

“I simply daren’t tell him!  No, I daren’t!”

The voice was considerably agitated, but he smiled maliciously to himself, thinking: 

“It can’t be anything very awful, because she only talks in that strain when it’s nothing at all.  She loves to pretend she’s afraid of me.  And moreover I don’t believe there’s anything on earth she daren’t tell me.”

He heard another voice, reasoning in reply, that resembled Mimi’s.  Hadn’t that girl gone home yet?  And he heard Sissie’s voice and Charlie’s.  But for him all these were inarticulate.

Then his room was filled with swift blinding light.  Somebody had put a hand through the doorway and turned the light on.  It must be Eve....  It was Eve, scared and distressed, but still in complete war-paint.

“I’m so relieved you’re awake, Arthur,” she said, approaching the bed as though she anticipated the bed would bite her.

“I’m not awake.  I’m asleep, officially.  My poor girl, you’ve ruined the finest night I was ever going to have in all my life.”

She ignored his complaint, absolutely.

“Arthur,” she said, her face twitching in every direction, and all her triumph fallen from her, “Arthur, I’ve lost my pearls.  They’re gone!  Some one must have taken them!”

Mr. Prohack’s reaction to this piece of more-than-midnight news was to break into hearty and healthy laughter; he appeared to be genuinely diverted; and when Eve protested against such an attitude he said: 

“My child, anything that strikes you as funny after being wakened up at two o’clock in the morning is very funny, very funny indeed.  How can I help laughing?” Eve thereupon began to cry, weakly.

“Come here, please,” said he.

And she came and sat on the bed, but how differently from the previous visit!  She was now beaten by circumstances, and she turned for aid to his alleged more powerful mind and deeper wisdom.  In addition to being amused, the man was positively happy, because he was no longer a mere complement!  So he comforted her, and put his hands on her shoulders.

“Don’t worry,” said he, gently.  “And after all I’m not surprised the necklace has been pinched.”

“Not surprised?  Arthur!”

“No.  You collect here half the notorious smart people in London.  Fifty per cent of them go through one or other of the Courts; five per cent end by being detected criminals, and goodness knows what per cent end by being undetected criminals.  Possibly two per cent treat marriage seriously, and possibly one per cent is not in debt.  That’s the atmosphere you created, and it’s an atmosphere in which pearls are apt to melt away.  Hence I am not surprised, and you mustn’t be.  Still, it would be interesting to know how the things melted away.  Were you wearing them?”