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'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.
"Oh!" exclaimed Miss Winstock, "the boy who drove off in Lady Massulam's car?" "Was that Lady Massulam?" asked Mr. Prohack before he had had time to recover from the immense effect of hearing the startling, almost legendary name of Lady Massulam in connection with his son. "Of course," said Miss Winstock. "Didn't you know?" Mr. Prohack ignored her pertness.
"He's from The Daily Picture.... But isn't this rather a strange way of greeting a guest after so long a separation? Do you know that I'm in your house and you haven't shaken hands with me?" There was a note of intimacy and of challenge in Lady Massulam's demeanour that pleased Mr. Prohack immensely, and caused him to see that the romance of Frinton was neither factitious nor at an end.
Marvellous the intuition or the happy flukes of women! Yet their duplicity was still more marvellous. The creature's expressed anxiety about the danger of Lady Massulam's society to Charlie must have been pure, wanton, gratuitous pretence. He told her of his meeting with Lady Massulam. "I left her at 2 a.m.," said he, with well-feigned levity. "I knew she wouldn't leave you alone for long.
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.
In a flash he had compared her, in this boudoir, with Lady Massulam in Lady Massulam's bungalow. In a flash all the queer, frightening romance of 2 a.m. in Frinton had swept through his mind. Well, she had not the imposingness nor the mystery of Lady Massulam, nor perhaps the challenge of Lady Massulam; she was very much more prosaic to him.
And suddenly he understood the true function of the magnificent orchestra that dominated the scene. It was the function of a brass band at a quack-dentist's booth in a fair, to drown the cries of the victims of the art of extraction. "Yes," he reflected, full of health and carelessness. "This is a truly great life." The party went off in two automobiles, his own and Lady Massulam's.
And as they crossed Charlie entered the assemblage. He certainly had an extremely perturbed or was it merely self-conscious face. And just in front of him was Mimi Winstock, who looked as if she was escaping from the scene of a crime. Was Lady Massulam's warning about Charlie about to be justified? Mr. Prohack's qualm was renewed.
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