"You see, sir, on these gala nights they all do their very best."
"Father!"
Sissie had arrived upon him. Clearly she was preoccupied, if not worried, and the unexpected sight of her parent forced her, as it were, unwillingly from one absorbing train of ideas into another. She was startled, self-conscious, nervous. Still, she jumped at him and kissed him,—as if in a dream.
"Nothing the matter, is there?"
"Nothing."
"I'm frightfully busy to-night. Just come in here, will you?"
And she took him into the ladies' cloakroom—an apartment the like of which he had never before seen. It had only one chair, in front of a sort of dressing-table covered with mysterious apparatus and instruments.
Mr. Prohack inspected his daughter as though she had been somebody else's daughter.
"Well," said he. "You look just like a real business woman, except the dress."
She was very attractive, very elegant, comically young (to him), and very business-like in her smart, short frock, stockings, and shoes.