pened one.... I shall probably call here
again soon."

At this point there was another ring at the front-door.

"So you've condescended!" Sissie greeted Charles when Ozzie brought him
into the room, and then, catching her father's eye and being anxious to
rest secure in the paternal admiration, she added: "Anyway it was very
decent of you to come. I know how busy you are."

Charles raised his eyebrows at this astonishing piece of sisterliness.
His mother kissed him fondly, having received from Mr. Prohack during
the day the delicatest, filmiest hint that perhaps Charlie was not at
the moment fabulously prospering.

"Your father is very gay to-night," said she, gazing at Charlie as
though she read into the recesses of his soul and could see a martyrdom
there, though in fact she could not penetrate any further than the boy's
eyeballs.

"I beg you to note," Mr. Prohack remarked. "That as the glasses have
only been filled once, and three of them are at least a quarter full,
only the equivalent of two and a half champagne glasses has actually
been drunk by four people, which will not explain much gaiety. If the
old gentleman is gay, and he does not assert that he is not, the true
reason lies in either the caviare or the pate de foie gras, or in his
crystal conscience. Have a drink, Charles?"

"Finish mine, my pet," said Eve, holding forth her tumbler, and Charlie
obeyed.

"A touching sight," observed Mr. Prohack. "Now as Charlie has managed to
spare us a few minutes out of his thrilling existence, I want to have a
few words with him in private about an affair of state. There's nothing
that you oughtn't to hear," he addressed the company, "but a great deal
that you probably wouldn't understand--and the last thing we desire is
to humiliate you. That's so, isn't it, Carlos?"

"It is," Charles quickly agreed, without a sign of self-consciousness.

"Now then, hostess, can you lend us another room,--boudoir,
morning-room, smoking-room, card-room, even ball-room; anything will do
for us. Possibly Ozzie's study...."

"Father! Father!" Sissie warned him against an excess of facetiousness.
"You can either go into our bedroom or you can sit on the stairs, and
talk."

As father and son disappeared together into the bedroom, which
constituted a full half of the entire flat, Mr. Prohack noticed on his
wife's features an expression of anxiety tempered by an assured
confidence in his own wisdom and force. He knew indeed that h