“Where’s my dessert?” demanded Mrs. Prohack, anxiously and resentfully, when her husband at length reached the bedroom.  “I’m dying of hunger, and I’ve got a real headache now.  Oh!  Arthur how absurd all this is!  At least it would be if I wasn’t so hungry.”

“Sissie ate all the dessert,” Mr. Prohack answered timidly.  He no longer felt triumphant, careless and free.  Indeed for some minutes he had practically forgotten that he had inherited ten thousand a year.  “The child ate it every bit, so I couldn’t bring any.  Shall I ring for something else?”

“And why,” Mrs. Prohack continued, “why have you been so long?  And what’s all this business of taxis rushing up to the door all the evening?”

“Marian,” said Mr. Prohack, ignoring her gross exaggeration of the truth as to the taxis.  “I’d better tell you at once.  Charlie’s gone to Glasgow on his own business and Sissie’s just run down to Viola Ridle’s studio about a new scheme of some kind that she’s thinking of.  For the moment we’re alone in the world.”

“It’s always the same,” she remarked with indignation, when with forced facetiousness he had given her an extremely imperfect and bowdlerized account of his evening.  “It’s always the same.  As soon as I’m laid up in bed, everything goes wrong.  My poor boy, I cannot imagine what you’ve been doing.  I suppose I’m very silly, but I can’t understand it.”

Nor could Mr. Prohack himself, now that he was in the sane conjugal atmosphere of the bedroom.

CHAPTER VII

THE SYMPATHETIC QUACK

I

The next morning Mr. Prohack had a unique shock, for he was awakened by his wife coming into the bedroom.  She held a big piece of cake in her hand.  Never before had Mrs. Prohack been known to rise earlier than her husband.  Also, the hour was eight-twenty, whereas never before had Mr. Prohack been known, on a working-day, to rise later than eight o’clock.  He realised with horror that it would be necessary for him to hurry.  Still, he did not jump up.  He was not a brilliant sleeper, and he had had a bad night, which had only begun to be good at the time when as a rule he woke finally for the day.  He did not feel very well, despite the fine sensation of riches which rushed reassuringly into his arms the moment consciousness returned.

“Arthur,” said Mrs. Prohack, who was in her Chinese robe, “do you know that girl hasn’t been home all night.  Her bed hasn’t been slept in!”

“Neither has mine,” answered Mr. Prohack.  “What girl?”

“Sissie, of course.”

“Ah!  Sissie!” murmured Mr. Prohack as if he had temporarily forgotten that such a girl existed.  “Didn’t I tell you last night she mightn’t be back?”

“No, you didn’t!  And you know very well you didn’t!”

“Honestly,” said Mr. Prohack (meaning “dishonestly” as most people do in similar circumstances), “I thought I did.”