Prohack was in danger of being hypnotised by the spectacle, but suddenly the conflict between the disc and the needle grew more acute, and Lizzie, the guardian, dragged the needle sharply from the bosom of its antagonist. The sounds ceased, and the brains of the couples in the studio, no longer inspired by the sounds, ceased to inspire the muscles of the couples, and the rite suddenly finished. Mr. Prohack drew breath.

"To think," he reflected, "that this sort of thing is seriously going on all over London at this very instant, and that many earnest persons are making a livelihood from it, and that nobody but me perceives how marvellous, charming, incomprehensible and disconcerting it is!"

He said to the guardian:

"There doesn't seem to be much 'lesson' about this business. Everybody here seems to be able to dance all right."

To which Lizzie replied with a sagacious, even ironic, smile:

"You see, sir, on these gala nights they all do their very best."

"Father!"

Sissie had arrived upon him. Clearly she was preoccupied, if not worried, and the unexpected sight of her parent forced her, as it were, unwillingly from one absorbing train of ideas into another. She was startled, self-conscious, nervous. Still, she jumped at him and kissed him,—as if in a dream.

"Nothing the matter, is there?"

"Nothing."

"I'm frightfully busy to-night. Just come in here, will you?"

And she took him into the ladies' cloakroom—an apartment the like of which he had never before seen. It had only one chair, in front of a sort of dressing-table covered with mysterious apparatus and instruments.

Mr. Prohack inspected his daughter as though she had been somebody else's daughter.

"Well," said he. "You look just like a real business woman, except the dress."

She was very attractive, very elegant, comically young (to him), and very business-like in her smart, short frock, stockings, and shoes.

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