n date. He _wouldn't_ take No, poor dear! Well,
_he_ was a gentleman anyway. Of course it was no more than right that he
should put me down in his will, but not every man would have done. In
fact it never happened to me before. Wasn't it strange I should have
that feeling about never being his wife?"

She glanced eagerly at Mr. Prohack and Mr. Prohack's women, and there
was a pause, in which Mr. Softly Bishop said, affectionately regarding
his nose:

"Well, my dear, you'll be _my_ wife, you'll find," and he uttered this
observation in a sharp tone of conviction that made a quite disturbing
impression on the whole company, and not least on Mr. Prohack, who kept
asking himself more and more insistently:

"Why is Softly Bishop marrying Miss Fancy, and why is Miss Fancy
marrying Softly Bishop?"

Mr. Prohack was interrupted in his private enquiry into this enigma by a
very unconventional nudge from Sissie, who silently directed his
attention to Eve, who seemingly wanted it.

"Your friend seems anxious to speak to you," murmured Eve, in a low,
rather roguish voice.

'His friend' was Lady Massulam, who was just concluding a solitary lunch
at a near table; he had not noticed her, being still sadly remiss in the
business of existing fully in a fashionable restaurant. Lady Massulam's
eyes confirmed Eve's statement.

"I'm sure Miss Fancy will excuse you for a moment," said Eve.

"Oh! Please!" implored Miss Fancy, grandly.

Mr. Prohack self-consciously carried his lankness and his big head
across to Lady Massulam's table. She looked up at him with a composed
but romantic smile. That is to say that Mr. Prohack deemed it romantic;
and he leaned over the table and over Lady Massulam in a manner romantic
to match.

"I'm just going off," said she.

Simple words, from a portly and mature lady--yet for Mr. Prohack they
were charged with all sorts of delicious secondary significances.

"What _is_ the difference between her and Eve?" he asked himself, and
then replied to the question in a flash of inspiration: "I am romantic
to her, and I am not romantic to Eve." He liked this ingenious
explanation.

"I wanted to tell you," said she gravely, with beautiful melancholy,
"Charles is _flambe_. He is done in. I cannot help him. He will not let
me; but if I see him to-night when he returns to town I shall send him
to you. He is very young, very difficult, but I shall insist that he
goes to you."

"How kind you are!" said Mr. Pr