His mind ran:

"That fellow has kissed my daughter, and he has kissed her for the first
time. It is monstrous that any girl, and especially my daughter, should
be kissed for the first time. I have not been consulted, and I had not
the slightest idea that matters had gone so far. Her mother has probably
been here, with Charlie, and gone off leaving these doves together.
Culpable carelessness on her part. Talk about mothers! No father would
have been guilty of such negligence. The affair must be stopped. It
amounts to an outrage."

A peculiar person, Mr. Prohack! No normal father could have had such
thoughts. Mr. Prohack could of course have burst in upon the pair and
smashed an idyll to fragments. But instead of doing so he turned away
from the idyll and descended the stairs as stealthily as he could.

Nobody challenged his exit. In the street he breathed with relief as if
he had escaped from a house of great peril; but he did not feel safe
until he had lost himself in the populousness of Oxford Street.

"For social and family purposes," he reflected, "I have not seen that
kiss. I cannot possibly tell them, or tell anybody, that I spied upon
their embrace. To put myself right I ought to have called out a greeting
the very instant I spotted them. But I did not call out a greeting. By
failing to do so I put myself in a false position.... How shall I get
official news of that kiss? Shall I ever get news of it?"

He had important business to transact with tradesmen. He could not do
it. On leaving home he had not decided whether he would lunch
domestically or at the Grand Babylon. He now perceived that he could do