Before tea he enjoyed a sleep, without having to time his repose so as to avoid being wakened by the clock. And then tea for one was served with full pomp in his study. This meant either that his tireless women were out, or that Eve had judged it prudent to indulge him in a solitary tea; and, after the hurried thick-cupped teas at the Treasury, he certainly did not dislike a leisurely tea replete with every luxury proper to the repast. He ate, drank, and read odd things in odd corners of _The Times_, and at last he smoked.
He was on the edge of felicity in his miserableness when his indefatigable women entered, all smiles. They had indeed been out, and they were still arrayed for the street. One by one they removed or cast aside such things as gloves, hats, coats, bags, until the study began to bear some resemblance to a boudoir. Mr. Prohack, though cheerfully grumbling at this, really liked it, for he was of those who think that nothing furnishes a room so well as a woman's hat, provided it be not permanently established.
Sissie even took off one shoe, on the plea that it hurt her, and there the trifling article lay, fragile, gleaming and absurd. Mr. Prohack appreciated it even more than the hats. He understood, perhaps better than ever before, that though he had a vast passion for his wife, there was enough emotion left in him to nourish an affection almost equally vast for his daughter. She was a proud piece, was that girl, and he was intensely proud of her. Nor did a realistic estimate of her faults of character seem in the least to diminish his pride in her. She had distinction; she had race. Mimi might possibly be able to make rings round her in the pursuit of any practical enterprise, but her mere manner of existing from moment to moment was superior to Mimi's. The simple-minded parent was indeed convinced at heart that the world held no finer young woman than Sissie Prohack. He reflected with satisfaction: "She knows I'm old, but there's something young in me that forces her to treat me as young; and moreover she adores me." He also reflected: "Of course they're after something, these two. I can see a put-up job in their eyes." Ah! He was ready for them, and the sensation of being ready for them was like a tonic to him, raising him momentarily above misery.