Mr. Prohack had bought the lease of the noble mansion, with all the contents thereof, merely because this appeared to be the easiest thing to do.  He had not been forced to change his manner of life; far from it.  Owing to a happy vicissitude in the story of the R.R.  Corporation Charlie had called upon his father for only a very small portion of the offered one hundred and fifty thousand pounds, and had even repaid that within a few weeks.  Matters had thereafter come to such a pass with Charlie that he had reached the pages of The Daily Picture, and was reputed to be arousing the jealousy of youthful millionaires in the United States; also the figure which he paid weekly for rent of his offices in the Grand Babylon Hotel was an item of common knowledge in the best clubs and not to know it was to be behind the times in current information.  No member of his family now ventured to offer advice to Charlie, who still, however, looked astonishingly like the old Charlie of motor-bicycle transactions.

The fact is, people do not easily change.  Mr. Prohack had seemed to change for a space, but if indeed any change had occurred in him, he had changed back.  Scientific idleness?  Turkish baths?  Dandyism?  All vanished, contemned, forgotten.  To think of them merely annoyed him.  He did not care what necktie he wore.  Even dancing had gone the same way.  The dancing season was over until October, and he knew he would never begin again.  He cared not to dance with the middle-aged, and if he danced with the young he felt that he was making a fool of himself.

It had been rather a lark to come and stay for a few days in his old home,—­to pass the sacred door of the conjugal bedroom (closed for ever to him) and mount to Charlie’s room, into which Sissie had put the bulk of the furniture from the Japanese flat—­without overcrowding it.  Decidedly amusing to sleep in Charlie’s old little room!  But the romantic sensation had given way to the sensation of the hardness of the bed.

Breakfast achieved, Mr. Prohack wondered what he should do next, for he had nothing to do; he had no worries, and almost no solicitudes; he had successfully adapted himself to his environment.  Through the half-open door of the dining-room he heard Sissie and Ozzie.  Ozzie was off to the day’s business, and Sissie was seeing him out of the house, as Eve used to see Mr. Prohack out.  Ozzie, by reason of a wedding present of ten thousand pounds given in defiance of Sissie’s theories, and with the help of his own savings, was an important fellow now in the theatrical world, having attained a partnership with the Napoleon of the stage.

“You’d no business to send for the doctor without telling me,” Sissie was saying in her harsh tone.  “What do I want with a doctor?”

“I thought it would be for the best, dear,” came Ozzie’s lisping reply.

“Well, it won’t, my boy.”

The door banged.

“Eve never saw me off like that,” Mr. Prohack reflected.