Then Eve ceased suddenly.

"To think," she remarked with calmness, "that you're called the Terror
of the Departments, and you're a great authority on finance, and you've
been in the Government service for nearly twenty-five years, and always
done your duty--"

"Child," Mr. Prohack interrupted her. "Don't tell me what I know. And
try not to be surprised at any earthly phenomena. There are people who
are always being astonished by the most familiar things. They live on
earth as if they'd just dropped from Mars on to a poor foreign planet.
It's not a sign of commonsense. You've lived on earth now for--shall we
say?--some twenty-nine or thirty years, and if you don't know the place
you ought to. I assure you that there is nothing at all unusual in our
case. We are perfectly innocent; we are even praiseworthy; and yet--we
shall have to suffer. It's quite a common case. You've read of thousands
and millions of such cases; you've heard of lots personally; and you've
actually met a few. Well, now, you yourself _are_ a case. That's all."

Mrs. Prohack said impatiently:

"I consider the Government's treated you shamefully. Why, we're much
worse off than we were before the war."

"The Government has treated me shamefully. But then it's treated
hundreds of thousands of men shamefully. All Governments do."

"But we have a position to keep up!"