to him:

"You needn't stay here, you know. Go and amuse yourself." (This
suggestion followed the advent of Lady Massulam.)

He didn't stay. Ozzie Morfey and Sissie supplanted him. At a quarter to
eleven he was in the glazed conservatory built over the monumental
portico, with Sir Paul Spinner. He could see down into the Square, which
was filled with the splendid and numerous automobiles incident to his
wife's reception. Guests--and not the least important among them--were
still arriving. Cars rolled up to the portico, gorgeous women and plain
men jumped out on to the red cloth, of which he could just see the
extremity near the kerb, and vanished under him, and the cars hid
themselves away in the depths of the Square. Looking within his home he
admired the vista of brilliantly illuminated rooms, full of gilt chairs,
priceless furniture, and extremely courageous toilettes. For, as the
reception was 'to meet the Committee of the League of all the Arts.'
(Ozzie had placed many copies of the explanatory pamphlet on various
tables), artists of all kinds and degrees abounded, and the bourgeois
world (which chiefly owned the automobiles) thought proper to be
sartorially as improper as fashion would allow; and fashion allowed
quite a lot. The affair might have been described as a study in
shoulder-blades. It was a very great show, and Mr. Prohack appreciated
all of it, the women, the men, the lionesses, the lions, the
kaleidoscope of them, the lights, the reflections in the mirrors and in
the waxed floors, the discreetly hidden music, the grandiose buffet, the
efficient valetry. He soon got used to not recognising, and not being
recognised by, the visitors to his own house. True, he could not
conceive that the affair would serve any purpose but one,--namely the
purpose of affording innocent and expensive pleasure to his wife.

"You've hit on a pretty good sort of a place here," grunted Sir Paul
Spinner, whose waistcoat buttons were surpassed in splendour only by his
carbuncles.

"Well," said Mr. Prohack, "to me, living here is rather like being on
the stage all the time. It's not real."

"What the deuce do you mean, it's not real? There aren't twenty houses
in London with a finer collection of genuine bibelots than you have
here."

"Yes, but they aren't mine, and I didn't choose them or arrange them."

"What does that matter? You can look at them and enjoy the sight of
them. Nobody can do more."

"Paul, you're talking