United States or Saint Martin ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Eve brought in to her husband, who had improved his moral stamina and his physical charm by means of the finest of his dressing-gowns, a dark, thin young man, clothed to marvellous perfection, with a much-loved moustache, and looking as fresh as if he was just going to a party. Mr. Prohack of course recognised him as one of the guests. "Good morning," said Mr. Prohack. "So you are the detective."
But I catch you reading it yourself, and before you've opened The Times! Dear, dear! That bacon's a cinder and I daren't say anything to her." "Lady," replied Mr. Prohack, "we all have something base in our natures. Sin springs from opportunity. I cannot resist the damned paper." And he stuck his fork into the fair frock-coat of a fatuous bridegroom coming out of church.
Prohack watched him. Mr. Prohack's son was, in some respects, a great mystery to him. He could not understand, for instance, how his own offspring could be so unresponsive to the attractions of the things of the mind, and so interested in mere machinery and the methods of moving a living or a lifeless object from one spot on the earth's surface to another. Mr.
As father and son disappeared together into the bedroom, which constituted a full half of the entire flat, Mr. Prohack noticed on his wife's features an expression of anxiety tempered by an assured confidence in his own wisdom and force. He knew indeed that he had made quite a favourable sensation by his handling of Sissie's tendency to a hard austerity.
Prohack was a fairly tall man, with a big head, big features, and a beard. His characteristic expression denoted benevolence based on an ironic realisation of the humanity of human nature. He was forty-six years of age and looked it. He had been for more than twenty years at the Treasury, in which organism he had now attained a certain importance. He was a Companion of the Bath.
She was a new revelation, packed with possibilities. Mr. Prohack recalled his wife's phrase: "You know she adores you." He hadn't known. Honestly such an idea had not occurred to him. But did she adore him? Not "adore" naturally but had she a bit of a fancy for him? Mr. Prohack became the youngest man in the room, an extraordinary case of rejuvenescence. He surveyed the room with triumph.
I have to decide it for myself, and I've decided it. As for what mother says " Sissie frowned and then smiled, "that's your affair." "My affair!" Mr. Prohack exclaimed in real alarm. "What on earth do you mean?" "Well, you and she are so thick together. You're got to live with her. I haven't got to live with her." "I ask you, what on earth do you mean?"
Prohack would have settled the matter, but neither Eve nor the insurance company would let him settle it. And if the car had not had an accident Eve would not have had traumatic neurasthenia, with all its disconcerting reactions on family life.
Probably had it for years. The duodenum is obstructed. A little accident that easily happens." He addressed himself as it were privately to Mrs. Prohack. "The duodenum is no thicker than that." He indicated the pencil with which he was already writing in a pocket-book. "We'll get it right." "What is the duodenum?" Mr. Prohack wanted to cry out. But he was too ashamed to ask.
She merely said, with a slight mechanical smile: "As soon as this dance is over, sir, I'll let Miss Prohack know she's wanted." She did not say: "Sir, a person of your eminence is above rules. Go right in." Two girls in all-enveloping dark cloaks entered behind him. "Good-evening, Lizzie," one of them greeted the guardian. And Lizzie's face relaxed into a bright genuine smile.
Word Of The Day