what seemed to be the climax, came one cold morning when she and Mr.
Prohack and Sissie and Dr. Veiga were sitting together in the little
boudoir beyond the bedroom. They were packed in there because Eve
(otherwise Marian) had taken a fancy to the sofa.

Eve was relating to the admired and trusted doctor all her peculiar
mental and moral symptoms. She was saying that she could no longer
manage the house, could not concentrate her mind on anything, could not
refrain from strange caprices, could not remain calm, could not keep her
temper, and was the worst conceivable wife for such a paragon as Arthur
Prohack. Her daughter alone had saved the household organism from a
catastrophe; her daughter Sissie--

"Come here, Sissie!"

Sissie obeyed the call and was suddenly embraced by her mother with deep
tenderness. This in front of the doctor! Still more curious was the fact
that Sissie, of late her mother's frigid critic, came forward and
responded to the embrace almost effusively. The spectacle was really
touching. It touched Mr. Prohack, who yet felt as if the floor had
yielded under his feet and he was falling into the Tube railway
underground. Indeed Mr. Prohack had never had such sensations as drew
and quartered him then.

"Well," said Dr. Veiga to Mrs. Prohack in his philosophical-realistic
manner, "I've been marking time for a week. I shall now proceed to put
you right. You can't sleep. You will sleep to-night--I shall send you
something. I suppose it isn't your fault that you've been taking the
digestive tonic I sent you last thing at night under the impression that
it was a sedative, in spite of the label. But it is regrettable. As for