"Your friend seems anxious to speak to you," murmured Eve, in a low, rather roguish voice.
'His friend' was Lady Massulam, who was just concluding a solitary lunch at a near table; he had not noticed her, being still sadly remiss in the business of existing fully in a fashionable restaurant. Lady Massulam's eyes confirmed Eve's statement.
"I'm sure Miss Fancy will excuse you for a moment," said Eve.
"Oh! Please!" implored Miss Fancy, grandly.
Mr. Prohack self-consciously carried his lankness and his big head across to Lady Massulam's table. She looked up at him with a composed but romantic smile. That is to say that Mr. Prohack deemed it romantic; and he leaned over the table and over Lady Massulam in a manner romantic to match.
"I'm just going off," said she.
Simple words, from a portly and mature lady—yet for Mr. Prohack they were charged with all sorts of delicious secondary significances.
"What is the difference between her and Eve?" he asked himself, and then replied to the question in a flash of inspiration: "I am romantic to her, and I am not romantic to Eve." He liked this ingenious explanation.
"I wanted to tell you," said she gravely, with beautiful melancholy, "Charles is flambé. He is done in. I cannot help him. He will not let me; but if I see him to-night when he returns to town I shall send him to you. He is very young, very difficult, but I shall insist that he goes to you."
"How kind you are!" said Mr. Prohack, touched.