She kissed him.

“You can have the one at five thousand guineas,” said Mr. Prohack.  “Nothing less.  That is my ultimatum.  Put it on.  Put it on, quick!  Or I may change my mind.”

He recalled the experts who, when they heard the grave news, smiled bravely, and looked upon Eve as upon a woman whose like they might never see again.

“My wife will wear the necklace at once,” said Mr. Prohack.  “Pen and ink, please.”  He wrote a cheque.  “My car is outside.  Perhaps you will send some one up to my bank immediately and cash this.  We will wait.  I have warned the bank.  There will be no delay.  The case can be delivered at my house.  You can make out the receipt and usual guarantee while we’re waiting.”  And so it occurred as he had ordained.

“Would you care for us to arrange for the insurance?  We undertake to do it as cheaply as anybody,” the expert suggested, later.

Mr. Prohack was startled, for in his inexperience he had not thought of such complications.

“I was just going to suggest it,” he answered placidly.

“I feel quite queer,” said Eve, as she fingered the necklace, in the car, when all formalities were accomplished and they had left the cave of Aladdin.

“And well you may, my child,” said Mr. Prohack.  “The interest on the price of that necklace would about pay the salary of a member of Parliament or even of a professional cricketer.  And remember that whenever you wear the thing you are in danger of being waylaid, brutally attacked, and robbed.”

“I wish you wouldn’t be silly,” Eve murmured.  “I do hope I shan’t seem self-conscious at the lunch.”

“We haven’t reached the lunch yet,” Mr. Prohack replied.  “We must go and buy a safe first.  There’s no safe worth twopence in the house, and a really safe safe is essential.  And I want it to be clearly understood that I shall keep the key of that safe.  We aren’t playing at necklaces now.  Life is earnest.”

And when they had bought a safe and were once more in the car, he said, examining her impartially:  “After all, at a distance of four feet it doesn’t look nearly so grand as the one that’s lying at Scotland Yard—­I gave thirty pounds for that one.”

CHAPTER XXII

MR. PROHACK’S TRIUMPH

“And where is your charming daughter?” asked Mr. Softly Bishop so gently of Eve, when he had greeted her, and quite incidentally Mr. Prohack, in the entrance hall of the Grand Babylon Hotel.  He was alone—­no sign of Miss Fancy.

“Sissie?” said Eve calmly.  “I haven’t the slightest idea.”

“But I included her in my invitations—­and Mr. Morfey too.”

Mr. Prohack was taken aback, foreseeing the most troublesome complications; and he glanced at Eve as if for guidance and support.  He was nearly ready to wish that after all Sissie had not gone and got married secretly and prematurely.  Eve, however, seemed quite undisturbed, though she offered him neither guidance nor support.