om _The Daily Picture_.... But isn't this rather a strange way
of greeting a guest after so long a separation? Do you know that I'm in
your house and you haven't shaken hands with me?"

There was a note of intimacy and of challenge in Lady Massulam's
demeanour that pleased Mr. Prohack immensely, and caused him to see that
the romance of Frinton was neither factitious nor at an end. He felt
pleasantly, and even thrillingly, that they had something between them.

"Ah!" he returned, consciously exerting his charm. "I thought you
detested our English formality and horrible restraint. Further, this
isn't my house; it's my wife's."

"Your wife is wonderful!" said Lady Massulam, as though teaching him to
appreciate his wife and indicating that she alone had the right thus to
teach him,--the subtlest thing. "I've never seen an evening better
done--_reussie_."

"She is rather wonderful," Mr. Prohack admitted, his tone implying that
while putting Lady Massulam in a class apart, he had wit enough to put
his wife too in a class apart,--the subtlest thing.

"I quite expected to meet you again in Frinton," said Lady Massulam
simply. "How abrupt you are in your methods!"

"Only when it's a case of self-preservation," Mr. Prohack responded,
gazing at her with daring significance.

"I'm going to talk to Mrs. Prohack," said Lady Massulam, rising. But
before she left him she murmured confidentially in his ear: "Where's
your son?"

"Don't know. Why?'

"I don't think he's come yet. I'm afraid the poor hoy's affairs are not
very bright."

"I shall look after him," said Mr. Prohack, grandly. A qualm did pierce
him at the sound of her words, but he would not be depressed. He smiled
serenely, self-confidently, and said to himself: "I could look after
forty Charleses."

He watched his wife and his friend chatting together as equals in _The
Daily Picture_. Yes, Eve was wonderful, and but for sheer hazard he
would never have known how wonderful she was capable of being.

"You've got a great show here to-night, old man," said a low, mysterious
voice at his side. Mr. Softly Bishop was smiling down his nose and
holding out his hand while looking at nothing but his nose.

"Hello, Bishop!" said Mr. Prohack, controlling a desire to add: "I'd no
idea _you'd_ been invited!"

"Samples of every world--except the next," said Mr. Softly Bishop. "And
now the theatrical contingent is arriving after its night's work."

"Do you know who that fe