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No, Arthur. Frankly I couldn't have believed it of you." Mr. Prohack was affected. He was not merely dazzled by the new light which she was shedding on things, he was emotionally moved.... Would Lady Massulam be capable of such an attitude as Eve's in such a situation? The woman was astounding. She was more romantic than any creature in any bungalow of romantic Frinton. She beat him.
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.
In sending the car for his idle use, Eve had performed a master-stroke which laid him low by its kindliness, its wifeliness, its touches of perverse self-sacrifice and of vague, delicate malice. Lady Massulam hung in the vast hollow of his mind, a brilliant and intensely seductive figure; but Eve hung there too, and Mr. Prohack was obliged to admit that the simple Eve was holding her own.
It'll be much more amusing than dining here, and it saves the servants." Yet the woman had recently begun to assert that the servants hadn't enough to do! "Ah!" said Mr. Prohack, startled. "And who are the guests?" "Oh! Nobody! Only us and Charlie, of course, and Oswald Morfey, and perhaps Lady Massulam. I've told Charlie to do the ordering."
"But that's Charlie down there!" exclaimed Eve, suddenly, pointing to the stalls and then looking behind her to see if there was not another Charlie in the box. "Yes," Ozzie agreed. "Lady Massulam had an extra stall, and as five's a bit of a crowd in this box.... I thought he'd told you." "He had not," said Eve.
"You may see your friend Lady Massulam," said she, as the car entered the precincts of the station. "Why Lady Massulam?" he asked. "Didn't you know she's got a house at Frinton?" replied Mrs. Prohack. "Everybody has in these days. It's the thing." She didn't see him into the train, because she was in a hurry about butlers. Mr.
Mimi's gesture was a triumph for a man nearing fifty; but it was an alarming triumph.... Odd that in that moment he should think of Lady Massulam! His fatal charm was as a razor. Had he been playing with it as a baby might play with a razor?... Popinjay? Coxcomb? Perhaps, Nevertheless, the wench had artistically kissed his hand, and his hand felt self-complacent, even if he didn't.
Further, he despised them because they essayed to discuss Lady Massulam impartially, as though she was just a plain body, or nobody at all. A nauseating pretence on their part.
Hitherto he had not greatly cared for Lady Massulam, and could not see what Charlie saw in her. Now he saw what Charlie saw and perhaps more also. She had more than dignity, she had style. And she femininely challenged. She was like a breeze oil the French shore to a British barque cruising dully in the Channel. She welcomed the sight of Mr.
The competition for seats was prodigious, but of course Lady Massulam had obtained her usual stall. "What a pity we can't go!" said Sissie simply. "Will you all come in my box?" astonishingly replied Mr. Oswald Morfey, embracing in his weak glance the entire Prohack family. "The fellow came here on purpose to fix this," said Mr. Prohack to himself as the matter was being effusively clinched.
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