I  
 
Three days later Mr. Prohack came home late with his daughter in the substituted car. He had accompanied Sissie to Putney for the final disposition¹ of the affairs of the dance-studio, and had witnessed her blighting² politeness to Eliza Brating and Eliza Brating's blighting politeness to her. The last kiss between these two young women would have desolated³ the heart of any man whose faith in human nature was less strong than Mr. Prohack's. "I trust that the excellent Eliza is not disfigured for life," he had observed calmly in the automobile⁴. "What are you talking about, father?" Sissie had exclaimed, suspicious. "I was afraid her lips might be scorched⁵. You feel no pain yourself, my child, I hope?" He made the sound of a kiss. After this there was no more conversation in the car during the journey. Arrived home, Sissie said nonchalantly that she was going to bed.
 
"Burn my lips first," Mr. Prohack implored⁶.
 
"Father!" said she, having kissed him. "You are simply terrible."
 
"I am a child," he replied. "And you are my grandmother."
 
"You wait till I give you your next dancing-lesson," Sissie retorted, turning and threatening him from the stairs. "It won't be as mild as this afternoon's."
 
He smiled, giving an imitation of the sphinx. He was happy enough as mortals go. His wife was perhaps a little better. And he was gradually launching himself into an industrious⁷ career of idleness. Also, he had broken the ice,—the ice, that is to say, of tuition in dancing. Not a word had been spoken abroad in the house about the first dancing-lesson. He had had it while Mrs. Prohack was, in theory at least, paying calls; at any rate she had set forth⁸ in the car. Mr. Prohack and Sissie had rolled up the drawing-room carpet and moved the furniture themselves. Mr. Prohack had unpacked⁹ the gramophone in person. They had locked the drawing-room door. At the end of the lesson they had relaid the carpet and replaced the furniture and enclosed the gramophone and unlocked the door, and Mr. Prohack had issued from the drawing-room like a criminal. The thought in his mind had been that he was no end of a dog and of a brave dog at that. Then he sneered¹⁰ at himself for thinking such a foolish thought. After all, what was there in learning to dance? But the sneer¹¹ was misplaced. His original notion that he had done something courageous¹² and wonderful was just a notion.
 
The lesson had favoured the new nascent¹³ intimacy¹⁴ with his daughter. Evidently she was a born teacher as well as a born dancer. He perceived in two minutes how marvellous her feet were. She guided him with pressures light as a feather. She allowed herself to be guided with an intuitive responsiveness that had to be felt to be believed. Her exhortations¹⁵ were delicious, her reprimands exquisite¹⁶, her patience was infinite. Further, she said that he had what she called "natural rhythm," and would learn easily and satisfactorily. Best of all, he had been immediately aware of the physical benefit of the exercise. The household was supposed to know naught¹⁷ of the affair, but the kitchen knew a good deal about it somehow; the kitchen was pleasantly and rather condescendingly excited, and a little censorious, for the reason that nobody in the kitchen had ever before lived in a house the master of which being a parent of adult children took surreptitious lessons in dancing; the thing was unprecedented¹⁸, and therefore of course intrinsically reprehensible¹⁹. Mr. Prohack guessed the attitude of the kitchen, and had met Machin's respectful glance with a self-conscious eye.
 
He now bolted the front-door and went upstairs extinguishing the lights after him. Eve had told her husband and child that she should go to bed early. He meant to have a frolicsome²⁰, teasing chat with her, for the doctor had laid it down that light conversation would assist the cure of traumatic neurasthenia. She would not be asleep, and even if she were asleep she would be glad to awaken²², because she admired his style of gossip when both of them were in the vein²³ for it. He would describe for her the evening at the studio humorously, in such a fashion as to confirm her in her righteous belief that the misguided Sissie had seen the maternal²⁴ wisdom and quitted dance-studios for ever.
 
The lamps were out in the bedroom. She slept. He switched on a light, but her bed was empty; it had not been occupied!
 
"Marian!" he called in a low voice, thinking that she might be in the boudoir.
 
And if she was in the boudoir she must be reclining in the dark there. He ascertained²⁵ that she was not in the boudoir. Then he visited both the drawing-room and the dining-room. No Marian anywhere! He stood a moment in the hall and was in a mind to ring for Machin—he could see from a vague illumination at the entrance to the basement steps that the kitchen was still inhabited—but just then all the servants came upwards²⁶ on the way to the attics²⁷, and at the strange spectacle of their dancing master in the hall they all grew constrained²⁸ and either coughed or hurried as though they ought not to be caught in the act of retiring to bed.
 
Mr. Prohack, as it were, threw a lasso over Machin, who was the last of the procession.
 
"Where is your mistress, Machin?" He tried to be matter-of-fact, but something unusual in his tone apparently²⁹ started her.
 
"She's gone to bed, sir. She told me to put her hot-water bag in the bed early."
 
"Oh! Thanks! Good-night."
 
"Good-night, sir."
 
He could not persuade himself to call an alarm. He could not even inform Machin that she was mistaken, for to do so would have been equivalent to calling an alarm. Hesitating and inactive he allowed the black-and-white damsels and the blue cook to disappear. Nor would he disturb Sissie—yet. He had first to get used to the singular idea that his wife had vanished from home. Could this vanishing be one of the effects of traumatic neurasthenia? He hurried about and searched all the rooms again, looking with absurd carefulness, as if his wife were an insignificant³⁰ object that might have dropped unperceived under a chair or behind a couch.
 
Then he telephoned to her sister, enquiring³¹ in a voice of studied casualness. Eve was not at her sister's. He had known all the while that she would not be at her sister's. Being unable to recall the number, he had had to consult the telephone book. His instinct now was to fetch Sissie, whose commonsense³² had of late impressed him more and more; but he repressed the instinct, holding that he ought to be able to manage the affair alone. He could scarcely say to his daughter: "Your mother has vanished. What am I to do?" Moreover, feeling himself to be the guardian³³ of Marian's reputation for perfect sanity³⁴, he desired not to divulge³⁵ her disappearance³⁶, unless obliged to do so. She might return at any moment. She must return very soon. It was inconceivable that anything should have "happened" in the Prohack family....
 
Almost against his will he looked up "Police Stations" in the telephone-book. There were scores of police stations. The nearest seemed to be that of Mayfair. He demanded the number. To demand the number of the police station was like jumping into bottomless cold water. In a detestable dream he gave his name and address and asked if the police had any news of a street accident. Yes, several. He described his wife. He said, reflecting wildly, that she was not very tall and rather plump; dark hair. Dress? Dark blue. Hat and mantle³⁷? He could not say. Age? A queer impulse here. He knew that she hated the mention of her real age, and so he said thirty-nine. No! The police had no news of such a person. But the polite firm voice on the wire said that it would telephone to other stations and would let Mr. Prohack hear immediately if there was anything to communicate. Wonderful organisation³⁸, the London police force!
 
As he hung up the receiver he realised what had occurred and what he had done. Marian had mysteriously disappeared and he had informed the police,—he, Arthur Prohack, C.B. What an awful event!
 
His mind ran on the consequences of traumatic neurasthenia. He put on his hat and overcoat and unbolted the front-door as silently as he could—for he still did not want anybody in the house to know the secret—and went out into the street. What to do? A ridiculous move! Did he expect to find her lying in the gutter³⁹? He walked to the end of the dark street and peered into the cross-street, and returned. He had left the front-door open. As he re-entered the house he descried⁴⁰ in a corner of the hall, a screwed-up telegraph-envelope. Why had he not noticed it before? He snatched at it. It was addressed to "Mrs. Prohack."
 
Mr. Prohack's soul was instantaneously bathed in heavenly solace⁴¹. Traumatic neurasthenia had nothing to do with Eve's disappearance! His bliss⁴² was intensified⁴³ by the fact that he had said not a word to the servants and had not called Sissie. And it was somewhat impaired⁴⁴ by the other fact that he had been ass²¹ enough to tell the police. He was just puzzling his head to think what misfortune could have called his wife away—not that the prospect⁴⁵ of any misfortune much troubled him now that Eve's vanishing was explained—when through the doorway⁴⁶ he saw a taxi drive up. Eve emerged from the taxi.
 
 
 
II
 
 
He might have gone out and paid the fare for her, but he stayed where he was, in the doorway, thinking with beatific⁴⁷ relief that after all nothing had "happened" in the family.
 
"Ah!" he said, in the most ordinary, complacent⁴⁸, quite undisturbed tone, "I was just beginning to wonder where you'd got to. We've been back about five minutes, Sissie and I, and Sissie's gone to bed. I really don't believe she knows you were out."
 
Mrs. Prohack came urgently towards him, pushing the door to behind her with a careless loud bang. The bang might waken the entire household, but Mrs. Prohack did not care. Mrs. Prohack kissed him without a word. He possessed⁴⁹ in his heart a barometric⁵⁰ scale of her kisses, and this was a set-fair kiss, a kiss with a somewhat violent beginning and a reluctant close. Then she held her cheek for him to kiss. Both cheek and lips were freshly cold from the night air. Mr. Prohack was aware of an immense, romantic felicity. And he immediately became flippant, not aloud, but secretly, to hide himself from himself.
 
He thought:
 
"It's a positive fact that I've been kissing this girl of a woman for a quarter of a century, and she's fat."
 
But beneath his flippancy⁵¹ and beneath his felicity there was a lancinating qualm, which, if he had expressed it he would have expressed thus:
 
"If anything did happen to her, it would be the absolute ruin of me."
 
The truth was that his felicity frightened him. Never before had he been seriously concerned for her well-being⁵². The reaction from grave alarm lighted up the interior of his mysterious soul with a revealing flash of unique intensity⁵³.
 
"What are all these lights burning for?" she murmured. Lights were indeed burning everywhere. He had been in a mood to turn on but not to turn off.
 
"Oh!" he said, "I was just wandering about."
 
"I'll go straight upstairs," she said, trying to be as matter-of-fact as her Arthur appeared to be.
 
When he had leisurely⁵⁴ set the whole of the ground-floor to rights, he followed her. She was waiting for him in the boudoir. She had removed her hat and mantle, and lighted one of the new radiators⁵⁵, and was sitting on the sofa.
 
"There came a telegram from Charlie," she began. "I was crossing the hall just as the boy reached the door. So I opened the door myself. It was from Charlie to say that he would be at the Grand Babylon Hotel to-night."............