But Mrs. Prohack’s resentful pride would not make the first move, and would not allow Mr. Prohack to make it.  They knew, at second-hand through a friend of Viola Ridle’s, that Sissie was regularly active at the studio; also Sissie had had the effrontery to send a messenger for some of her clothes—­without even a note!  The situation was incredible, and waxed daily in incredibility.  Sissie’s behaviour could not possibly be excused.

This was the fourth and the chief matter that worried Mr. Prohack.  He regarded it sardonically as rather a lark; but he was worried to think of the girl making a fool of herself with her mother.  Her mother was demonstrably in the right.  To yield to the chit’s appalling heartlessness would be bad tactics and it would be humiliating.  Nevertheless Mr. Prohack had directed the taxi-driver to the dance-studio at Putney.  On the way it suddenly occurred to him, almost with a shock, that he was a rich man, secure from material anxieties, and that therefore he ought to feel light-hearted.  He had been losing sight of this very important fact for quite some time.

* * * * *

II

The woman in the cubicle near the door was putting a fresh disc on to a gramophone and winding up the instrument.  She was a fat, youngish woman, in a parlourmaid’s cap and apron, and Mr. Prohack had a few days earlier had a glimpse of her seated in his own hall waiting for a package of Sissie’s clothes.

“Very sorry, sir,” said she, turning her head negligently from the gramophone and eyeing him seriously.  “I’m afraid you can’t go in if you’re not in evening dress.”  Evidently from her firm, polite voice, she knew just what she was about, did that young woman.  She added:  “The rule’s very strict on Fridays.”

At the same moment a bell rang once.  The woman immediately released the catch of the gramophone and lowered the needle on to the disc, and Mr. Prohack heard music, but not from the cubicle.  There was a round hole in the match-board partition, and the trumpet attachment of the gramophone disappeared beyond the hole.

“This affair is organised,” thought Mr. Prohack, decidedly impressed by the ingenuity of the musical arrangement and by the promptness of the orchestral director in obeying the signal of the bell.

“My name is Prohack,” said he.  “I’m Miss Prohack’s father.”

This important announcement ought to have startled the sangfroid of the guardian, but it did not.  She merely said, with a slight mechanical smile: 

“As soon as this dance is over, sir, I’ll let Miss Prohack know she’s wanted.”  She did not say:  “Sir, a person of your eminence is above rules.  Go right in.”

Two girls in all-enveloping dark cloaks entered behind him.  “Good-evening, Lizzie,” one of them greeted the guardian.  And Lizzie’s face relaxed into a bright genuine smile.