IV
"Where's my dessert?" demanded Mrs. Prohack, anxiously and resentfully,when her husband at length reached the bedroom. "I'm dying of hunger,and I've got a real headache now. Oh! Arthur how absurd all this is! Atleast it would be if I wasn't so hungry."
"Sissie ate all the dessert," Mr. Prohack answered timidly. He no longerfelt triumphant, careless and free. Indeed for some minutes he hadpractically forgotten that he had inherited ten thousand a year. "Thechild ate it every bit, so I couldn't bring any. Shall I ring forsomething else?"
"And why," Mrs. Prohack continued, "why have you been so long? Andwhat's all this business of taxis rushing up to the door all theevening?"
"Marian," said Mr. Prohack, ignoring her gross exaggeration of the truthas to the taxis. "I'd better tell you at once. Charlie's gone to Glasgowon his own business and Sissie's just run down to Viola Ridle's studioabout a new scheme of some kind that she's thinking of. For the momentwe're alone in the world."
"It's always the same," she remarked with indignation, when with forcedfacetiousness he had given her an extremely imperfect and bowdlerizedaccount of his evening. "It's always the same. As soon as I'm laid up inbed, everything goes wrong. My poor boy, I cannot imagine what you'vebeen doing. I suppose I'm very silly, but I _can't_ understand it."
Nor could Mr. Prohack himself, now that he was in the sane conjugalatmosphere of the bedroom.
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