in the antique lease) and
Eve had invited him to leave the affair entirely to her. In the few
months since Charlie's great crisis, all things conspired together to
prove once more to Mr. Prohack that calamities expected never arrive.
Even the British Empire had continued to cohere, and revolution seemed
to be further off than ever before. The greatest menace to his peace of
mind, the League of all the Arts, had of course quietly ceased to exist;
but it had established Eve as a hostess. And Eve as a hostess had
gradually given up boring herself and her husband by large and stiff
parties, and they had gone back to entertaining none but
well-established and intimate friends with the maximum of informality as
of old,--to such an extent that occasionally in the vast and gorgeous
dining-room of the noble mansion Eve would have the roast planted on the
table and would carve it herself, also as of old; Brool did not seem to
mind.

Mr. Prohack had bought the lease of the noble mansion, with all the
contents thereof, merely because this appeared to be the easiest thing
to do. He had not been forced to change his manner of life; far from it.
Owing to a happy vicissitude in the story of the R.R. Corporation
Charlie had called upon his father for only a very small portion of the
offered one hundred and fifty thousand pounds, and had even repaid that
within a few weeks. Matters had thereafter come to such a pass with
Charlie that he had reached the pages of _The Daily Picture_, and was
reputed to be arousing the jealousy of youthful millionaires in the
United States; also the figure which he paid weekly for rent of his
offices in the Grand Babylon Hotel was an item of common knowledge in
the best clubs and not to know it was to be behind the times in current
information. No member of his family now ventured to offer advice to
Charlie, who still, however, looked astonishingly like the old Charlie
of motor-bicycle transactions.

The fact is, people do not easily change. Mr. Prohack had seemed to
change for a space, but if indeed any change had occurred in him, he had
changed back. Scientific idleness? Turkish baths? Dandyism? All
vanished, contemned, forgotten. To think of them merely annoyed him. He
did not care what necktie he wore. Even dancing had gone the same way.
The dancing season was over until October, and he knew he would never
begin again. He cared not to dance with the middle-aged, and if he
danced with the young he felt