he
outraged mother and tranquillised the ecstatic daughter, and then in a
matter-of-fact voice asked: "And what about the date? Do let's get it
over."

"We must consult Ozzie," said the pacified mamma.

Off went Sissie again into shrieks.

"You needn't," she spluttered. "It's not Ozzie's wedding. It's mine. You
fix your own date, dearest, and leave Ozzie to me, Ozzie's only function
at my wedding is to be indispensable." And still laughing in the most
crude and shocking way she ran on her uneven feet out of the room,
leaving the shoe behind on the hearth-rug to prove that she really
existed and was not a hallucination.

"I can't make out what's the matter with that girl," said Eve.

"The sooner she's married the better," said Mr. Prohack, thoroughly
reconciled now to the tedium of the ceremonies.

"I daresay you're right. But upon my word I don't know what girls are
coming to," said Eve.

"Nobody ever did know that," said Mr. Prohack easily, though he also was
far from easy in his mind about the bridal symptoms.

VII

"Can Charlie speak to you for a minute?" The voice was Eve's,
diplomatic, apologetic. Her smiling and yet serious face, peeping in
through the bedroom door, seemed to say: "I know we're asking a great
favour and that your life is hard."

"All right," said Mr. Prohack, as a gracious, long-suffering autocrat,
without moving his eyes from the book he was reading.

He had gone to bed. He had of late got into the habit of going to bed.
He would go to bed on the slightest excuse, and would justify himself by
pointing out that Voltaire used to do the same. He was capable of going
to bed several times a day. It was early evening. The bed, though hired
for a year only, was of extreme comfortableness. The light over his head
was in exactly the right place. The room was warm. The book, by a Roman
Emperor popularly known as Marcus Aurelius, counted among the world's
masterpieces. It was designed to suit the case of Mr. Prohack, for its
message was to the effect that happiness and content are commodities
which can be manufactured only in the mind, from the mind's own
ingredients, and that if the mind works properly no external phenomena
can prevent the manufacture of the said commodities. In short,
everything was calculated to secure Mr. Prohack's felicity in that
moment. But he would not have it. He said to himself: "This book is all
very fine, immortal, supreme, and so on. Only it simply isn't true.