"There will be no need to open the other two bottles," said Mr. Prohack. "Indeed, I need only have opened one.... I shall probably call here again soon."
At this point there was another ring at the front-door.
"So you've condescended!" Sissie greeted Charles when Ozzie brought him into the room, and then, catching her father's eye and being anxious to rest secure in the paternal admiration, she added: "Anyway it was very decent of you to come. I know how busy you are."
Charles raised his eyebrows at this astonishing piece of sisterliness. His mother kissed him fondly, having received from Mr. Prohack during the day the delicatest, filmiest hint that perhaps Charlie was not at the moment fabulously prospering.
"Your father is very gay to-night," said she, gazing at Charlie as though she read into the recesses of his soul and could see a martyrdom there, though in fact she could not penetrate any further than the boy's eyeballs.
"I beg you to note," Mr. Prohack remarked. "That as the glasses have only been filled once, and three of them are at least a quarter full, only the equivalent of two and a half champagne glasses has actually been drunk by four people, which will not explain much gaiety. If the old gentleman is gay, and he does not assert that he is not, the true reason lies in either the caviare or the pâté de foie gras, or in his crystal conscience. Have a drink, Charles?"
"Finish mine, my pet," said Eve, holding forth her tumbler, and Charlie obeyed.
"A touching sight," observed Mr. Prohack. "Now as Charlie has managed to spare us a few minutes out of his thrilling existence, I want to have a few words with him in private about an affair of state. There's nothing that you oughtn't to hear," he addressed the company, "but a great deal that you probably wouldn't understand—and the last thing we desire is to humiliate you. That's so, isn't it, Carlos?"
"It is," Charles quickly agreed, without a sign of self-consciousness.
"Now then, hostess, can you lend us another room,—boudoir, morning-room, smoking-room, card-room, even ball-room; anything will do for us. Possibly Ozzie's study...."