Mr. Prohack had unpacked the gramophone in person. They had locked the
drawing-room door. At the end of the lesson they had relaid the carpet
and replaced the furniture and enclosed the gramophone and unlocked the
door, and Mr. Prohack had issued from the drawing-room like a criminal.
The thought in his mind had been that he was no end of a dog and of a
brave dog at that. Then he sneered at himself for thinking such a
foolish thought. After all, what was there in learning to dance? But the
sneer was misplaced. His original notion that he had done something
courageous and wonderful was just a notion.

The lesson had favoured the new nascent intimacy with his daughter.
Evidently she was a born teacher as well as a born dancer. He perceived
in two minutes how marvellous her feet were. She guided him with
pressures light as a feather. She allowed herself to be guided with an
intuitive responsiveness that had to be felt to be believed. Her
exhortations were delicious, her reprimands exquisite, her patience was
infinite. Further, she said that he had what she called "natural
rhythm," and would learn easily and satisfactorily. Best of all, he had
been immediately aware of the physical benefit of the exercise. The
household was supposed to know naught of the affair, but the kitchen
knew a good deal about it somehow; the kitchen was pleasantly and rather
condescendingly excited, and a little censorious, for the reason that
nobody in the kitchen had ever before lived in a house the master of
which being a parent of adult children took surreptitious lessons in
dancing; the thing was unprecedented, and therefore of course
intrinsically reprehensible. Mr. Prohack guessed the attitude of the
kitchen, and had met Machin's respectful glance with a self-conscious
eye.

He now bolted the front-door and went upstairs extinguishing the lights