"It is. But we're all vulgar to-day. Look at that!" He pointed to the
page. "The granddaughter of a duke who refused the hand of a princess
sells her name and her face to a firm of ship-owners who keep newspapers
like their grandfathers kept pigeons.... But perhaps I'm only making a
noise like a man of fifty."

"You aren't fifty."

"I'm five hundred. And this coffee is remarkably thin."

"Let me taste it."

"Yes, you'd rob me of my coffee now!" said Mr. Prohack, surrendering his
cup. "Is it thin, or isn't it? I pride myself on living the higher life;
my stomach is not my inexorable deity; but even on the mountain top
which I inhabit there must be a limit to the thinness of the coffee."

Eve (as he called her, after the mother and prototype of all women--her
earthly name was Marian) sipped the coffee. She wrinkled her forehead
and then glanced at him in trouble.

"Yes, it's thin," she said. "But I've had to ration the cook. Oh,
Arthur, I _am_ going to make you unhappy after all. It's impossible for
me to manage any longer on the housekeeping allowance."

"Why didn't you tell me before, child?"

"I have told you 'before,'" said she. "If you hadn't happened to mention
the coffee, I mightn't have said anything for another fortnight. You