to have been. The popular idea that life is a shimmy is
a dangerous illusion." Mr. Prohack felt the epigram to be third-rate,
but he carried it off lightly.

"Sissie only went because Charlie wanted to go, and all I can say is
that it's a nice thing if Charlie isn't to be allowed to enjoy himself
now the war's over--after all he's been through."

"You're mixing up two quite different things. I bet that if Charlie
committed murder you'd go into the witness-box and tell the judge he'd
been wounded twice and won the Military Cross."

"This is one of your pernickety mornings."

"Seeing that your debauched children woke me up at three fifteen--!"

"They woke me up too."

"That's different. You can go to sleep again. I can't. You rather like
being wakened up, because you take a positively sensual pleasure in
turning over and going to sleep again."

"You hate me for that."

"I do."

"I make you very unhappy sometimes, don't I?"

"Eve, you are a confounded liar, and you know it. You have never caused
me a moment's unhappiness. You may annoy me. You may exasperate me. You
are frequently unspeakable. But you have never made me unhappy. And why?
Because I am one of the few exponents of romantic passion left in this
city. My passion for you transcends my reason. I am a fool, but I am a
magnificent fool. And the greatest miracle of modern times is that after
twenty-four years of marriage you should be able to give me pleasure by
perching your stout body on the arm of my chair as you are doing."

"Arthur, I'm not stout."

"Yes, you are. You're enormous. But hang it, I'm such a morbid fool I
like you enormous."

Mrs. Prohack, smiling mysteriously, remarked in a casual tone, as she
looked at _The Daily Picture_:

"Why _do_ people let their photographs get into the papers? It's awfully
vulgar."

"It is. But we're all vulgar to-day. Look at that!" He pointed to the
page. "The granddaughter of a duke who refused the hand of a princess
sells her name and her face to a firm of ship-owners who keep newspapers
like their grandfathers kept pigeons.... But perhaps I'm only making a
noise like a man of fifty."

"You aren't fifty."

"I'm five hundred. And this coffee is remarkably thin."

"Let me taste it."

"Yes, you'd rob me of my coffee now!" said Mr. Prohack, surrendering his
cup. "Is it thin, or isn't it? I pride myself on living the higher life;
my stomach is not my inexorable deity; but even on the mountain top
w