Haven't I? Did your mother tell you that?"

"Well, she didn't exactly say so."

"I should hope not! And allow me to inform you, my girl, that in
accusing me of not having a cent you're being guilty of the worst
possible taste. Children should always assume that their fathers have
mysterious stores of money, and that nothing is beyond their resources,
and if they don't rise to every demand it's only because in their
inscrutable wisdom they deem it better not to. Or it may be from mere
cussedness."

"Yes," said Sissie. "That's what I used to think when I was young. But
I've looked up your salary in _Whitaker's Almanac_."

"It was very improper of you. However, nothing is secret in these days,
and so I don't mind telling you that I've backed a winner to-day--not
to-day, but some little time since--and I can if necessary and agreeable
let you have fifty pounds."

Mr. Prohack as it were shook his crest in plenary contentment. He had
the same sensation of creativeness as he had had a while earlier with
his son,--a godlike sensation. And he was delighted with his girl. She
was so young and so old. And her efforts to play the woman of the world
with him were so comic and so touching. Only two or three years since
she had been driving a motor-van in order to defeat the Germans. She had
received twenty-eight shillings a week for six days of from twelve to
fourteen hours. She would leave the house at eight and come back at
eight, nine, or ten. And on her return, pale enough, she would laugh and
say she had had her dinner and would go to bed. But she had not had her
dinner. She was simply too tired and nervously exasperated to eat. And
she would lie in bed and tremble and cry quietly from fatigue. She did
not know that her parents knew these details. The cook, her confidante,
had told them, much later. And Mr. Prohack had decreed that Sissie must
never know that they knew. She had stuck to the task during a whole
winter, skidding on glassy asphalt, slimy wood, and slithery stone-setts
in the East End, and had met with but one accident, a minor affair. The
experience seemed to have had no permanent effect on her, but it had had
a permanent effect on her father's attitude towards her,--her mother had
always strongly objected to what she called the "episode," had shown
only relief when it concluded, and had awarded no merit for it.

"Can you definitely promise me fifty pounds, dad?" Sissie asked quietly.

Mr. Prohack made no a