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diff --git a/old/12773.txt b/old/12773.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eef6372 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12773.txt @@ -0,0 +1,15038 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Mr. Prohack, by E. Arnold Bennett + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Mr. Prohack + +Author: E. Arnold Bennett + +Release Date: June 29, 2004 [eBook #12773] +[Last updated: March 3, 2016] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MR. PROHACK*** + + +E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, Wilelmina Malliere, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +MR. PROHACK + +BY + +ARNOLD BENNETT + +Author of "Clayhanger," etc. + + + + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER + + I THE NEW POOR + II FROM THE DEAD + III THE LAW + IV EVE'S HEADACHE + V CHARLIE + VI SISSIE + VII THE SYMPATHETIC QUACK + VIII SISSIE'S BUSINESS + IX COLLISION + X THE THEORY OF IDLENESS + XI NEURASTHENIA CURED + XII THE PRACTICE OF IDLENESS + XIII FURTHER IDLENESS + XIV END OF AN IDLE DAY + XV THE HEAVY FATHER + XVI TRANSFER OF MIMI + XVII ROMANCE + XVIII A HOMELESS NIGHT + XIX THE RECEPTION + XX THE SILENT TOWER + XXI EVE'S MARTYRDOM + XXII MR. PROHACK'S TRIUMPH + XXIII THE YACHT + + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE NEW POOR + +I + + +Arthur Charles Prohack came downstairs at eight thirty, as usual, and +found breakfast ready in the empty dining-room. This pleased him, +because there was nothing in life he hated more than to be hurried. For +him, hell was a place of which the inhabitants always had an eye on the +clock and the clock was always further advanced than they had hoped. + +The dining-room, simply furnished with reproductions of chaste +Chippendale, and chilled to the uncomfortable low temperature that hardy +Britons pretend to enjoy, formed part of an unassailably correct house +of mid-Victorian style and antiquity; and the house formed part of an +unassailably correct square just behind Hyde Park Gardens. +(Taxi-drivers, when told the name of the square, had to reflect for a +fifth of a second before they could recall its exact situation.) + +Mr. Prohack was a fairly tall man, with a big head, big features, and a +beard. His characteristic expression denoted benevolence based on an +ironic realisation of the humanity of human nature. He was forty-six +years of age and looked it. He had been for more than twenty years at +the Treasury, in which organism he had now attained a certain +importance. He was a Companion of the Bath. He exulted in the fact that +the Order of the Bath took precedence of those bumptious Orders, Star of +India, St. Michael and St. George, Indian Empire, Royal Victorian and +British Empire; but he laughed at his wife for so exulting. If the +matter happened to be mentioned he would point out that in the table of +precedence Companions of the Bath ranked immediately below Masters in +Lunacy. + +He was proud of the Treasury's war record. Other departments of State +had swollen to amazing dimensions during the war. The Treasury, while +its work had been multiplied a hundredfold, had increased its personnel +by only a negligible percentage. It was the cheapest of all the +departments, the most efficient, and the most powerful. The War Office, +the Admiralty, and perhaps one other department presided over by a +personality whom the Prime Minister feared, did certainly defy and even +ignore the Treasury. But the remaining departments (and especially the +"mushroom ministries") might scheme as much as they liked,--they could +do nothing until the Treasury had approved their enterprises. Modest Mr. +Prohack was among the chief arbiters of destiny for them. He had daily +sat in a chair by himself and approved or disapproved according to his +conscience and the rules of the Exchequer; and his fiats, in practice, +had gone forth as the fiats of the Treasury. Moreover he could not be +bullied, for he was full of the sense that the whole constitution and +moral force of the British Empire stood waiting to back him. Scarcely +known beyond the Treasury, within the Treasury he had acquired a +reputation as "the terror of the departments." Several times irritated +Ministers or their high subordinates had protested that the Treasury's +(Mr. Prohack's) passion for rules, its demands for scientific evidence, +and its sceptical disposition were losing the war. Mr. Prohack had, in +effect retorted: "Departmentally considered, losing the war is a +detail." He had retorted: "Wild cats will not win the war." And he had +retorted: "I know nothing but my duty." + +In the end the war was not lost, and Mr. Prohack reckoned that he +personally, by the exercise of courage in the face of grave danger, had +saved to the country five hundred and forty-six millions of the +country's money. At any rate he had exercised a real influence over the +conduct of the war. On one occasion, a chief being absent, he had had to +answer a summons to the Inner Cabinet. Of this occasion he had remarked +to his excited wife: "They were far more nervous than I was." + +Despite all this, the great public had never heard of him. His portrait +had never appeared in the illustrated papers. His wife's portrait, as +"War-worker and wife of a great official," had never appeared in the +illustrated papers. No character sketch of him had ever been printed. +His opinions on any subject had never been telephonically or otherwise +demanded by the editors of up-to-date dailies. His news-value indeed was +absolutely nil. In _Who's Who_ he had only four lines of space. + +Mr. Prohack's breakfast consisted of bacon, dry toast, coffee, +marmalade, _The Times_ and _The Daily Picture_. The latter was full of +brides and bridegrooms, football, enigmatic murder trials, young women +in their fluffy underclothes, medicines, pugilists, cinema stars, the +biggest pumpkin of the season, uplift, and inspired prophecy concerning +horses and company shares; together with a few brief unillustrated notes +about civil war in Ireland, famine in Central Europe, and the collapse +of realms. + + +II + + +"Ah! So I've caught you!" said his wife, coming brightly into the room. +She was a buxom woman of forty-three. Her black hair was elaborately +done for the day, but she wore a roomy peignoir instead of a frock; it +was Chinese, in the Imperial yellow, inconceivably embroidered with +flora, fauna, and grotesques. She always thus visited her husband at +breakfast, picking bits off his plate like a bird, and proving to him +that her chief preoccupation was ever his well-being and the +satisfaction of his capricious tastes. + +"Many years ago," said Mr. Prohack. + +"You make a fuss about buying _The Daily Picture_ for me. You say it +humiliates you to see it in the house, and I don't know what. But I +catch you reading it yourself, and before you've opened _The Times_! +Dear, dear! That bacon's a cinder and I daren't say anything to her." + +"Lady," replied Mr. Prohack, "we all have something base in our natures. +Sin springs from opportunity. I cannot resist the damned paper." And he +stuck his fork into the fair frock-coat of a fatuous bridegroom coming +out of church. + +"My fault again!" the wife remarked brightly. + +The husband changed the subject: + +"I suppose that your son and daughter are still asleep?" + +"Well, dearest, you know that they were both at that dance last night." + +"They ought not to have been. The popular idea that life is a shimmy is +a dangerous illusion." Mr. Prohack felt the epigram to be third-rate, +but he carried it off lightly. + +"Sissie only went because Charlie wanted to go, and all I can say is +that it's a nice thing if Charlie isn't to be allowed to enjoy himself +now the war's over--after all he's been through." + +"You're mixing up two quite different things. I bet that if Charlie +committed murder you'd go into the witness-box and tell the judge he'd +been wounded twice and won the Military Cross." + +"This is one of your pernickety mornings." + +"Seeing that your debauched children woke me up at three fifteen--!" + +"They woke me up too." + +"That's different. You can go to sleep again. I can't. You rather like +being wakened up, because you take a positively sensual pleasure in +turning over and going to sleep again." + +"You hate me for that." + +"I do." + +"I make you very unhappy sometimes, don't I?" + +"Eve, you are a confounded liar, and you know it. You have never caused +me a moment's unhappiness. You may annoy me. You may exasperate me. You +are frequently unspeakable. But you have never made me unhappy. And why? +Because I am one of the few exponents of romantic passion left in this +city. My passion for you transcends my reason. I am a fool, but I am a +magnificent fool. And the greatest miracle of modern times is that after +twenty-four years of marriage you should be able to give me pleasure by +perching your stout body on the arm of my chair as you are doing." + +"Arthur, I'm not stout." + +"Yes, you are. You're enormous. But hang it, I'm such a morbid fool I +like you enormous." + +Mrs. Prohack, smiling mysteriously, remarked in a casual tone, as she +looked at _The Daily Picture_: + +"Why _do_ people let their photographs get into the papers? It's awfully +vulgar." + +"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 +started to give me more money in June, and you said that was the utmost +limit you could go to, and I believed it was. But it isn't enough. I +hate to bother you, and I feel ashamed--" + +"That's ridiculous. Why should you feel ashamed?" + +"Well, I'm like that." + +"You're revelling in your own virtuousness, my girl. Now in last week's +_Economist_ it said that the Index Number of commodity prices had +slightly fallen these last few weeks." + +"I don't know anything about indexes and the _Economist_," Eve retorted. +"But I know what coffee is a pound, and I know what the tradesmen's +books are--" + +At this point she cried without warning. + +"No," murmured Mr. Prohack, soothingly, caressingly. "You mustn't +baptise me. I couldn't bear it." And he kissed her eyes. + + + + +III + + +"I _know_ we can't afford any more for housekeeping," she whispered, +sniffing damply. "And I'm ashamed I can't manage, and I knew I should +make you unhappy. What with idle and greedy working-men, and all these +profiteers...! It's a shame!" + +"Yes," said Mr. Prohack. "It's what our Charlie fought for, and got +wounded twice for, and won the M.C. for. That's what it is. But you see +we're the famous salaried middle-class that you read so much about in +the papers, and we're going through the famous process of being crushed +between the famous upper and nether millstones. Those millstones have +been approaching each other--and us--for some time. Now they've begun to +nip. That funny feeling in your inside that's causing you still to +baptise me, in spite of my protest--that's the first real nip." + +She caught her breath. + +"Arthur," she said. "If you go on like that I shall scream." + +"Do," Mr. Prohack encouraged her. "But of course not too loud. At the +same time don't forget that I'm a humourist. Humourists make jokes when +they're happy, and when they're unhappy they make jokes." + +"But it's horribly serious." + +"Horribly." + +Mrs. Prohack slipped off the arm of the chair. Her body seemed to +vibrate within the Chinese gown, and she effervesced into an ascending +and descending series of sustained laughs. + +"That's hysteria," said Mr. Prohack. "And if you don't stop I shall be +reluctantly compelled to throw the coffee over you. Water would be +better, but there is none." + +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!" + +"True. That's where the honest poor have the advantage of us. You see, +we're the dishonest poor. We've been to the same schools and +universities and we talk the same idiom and we have the same manners and +like the same things as people who spend more in a month or a week than +we spend in a year. And we pretend, and they pretend, that they and we +are exactly the same. We aren't, you know. We're one vast pretence. Has +it occurred to you, lady, that we've never possessed a motor-car and +most certainly never shall possess one? Yet look at the hundreds of +thousands of cars in London alone! And not a single one of them ours! +This detail may have escaped you." + +"I wish you wouldn't be silly, Arthur." + +"I am not silly. On the contrary, my real opinion is that I'm the wisest +man you ever met in your life--not excepting your son. It remains that +we're a pretence. A pretence resembles a bladder. It may burst. We +probably shall burst. Still, we have one great advantage over the honest +poor, who sometimes have no income at all; and also over the rich, who +never can tell how big their incomes are going to be. _We know exactly +where we are_. We know to the nearest sixpence." + +"I don't see that that helps us. I consider the Government has treated +you shamefully. I wonder you important men in the Treasury haven't +formed a Trade Union before now." + +"Oh, Eve! After all you've said about Trade Unions this last year! You +shock me! We shall never he properly treated until we do form a Trade +Union. But we shall never form a Trade Union, because we're too proud. +And we'd sooner see our children starve than yield in our pride. That's +a fact." + +"There's one thing--we can't move into a cheaper house." + +"No," Mr. Prohack concurred. "Because there isn't one." + +Years earlier Mr. Prohack had bought the long lease of his house from +the old man who, according to the logical London system, had built the +house upon somebody else's land on the condition that he paid rent for +the land and in addition gave the house to the somebody else at the end +of a certain period as a free gift. By a payment of twelve pounds per +annum Mr. Prohack was safe for forty years yet and he calculated that in +forty years the ownership of the house would be a matter of some +indifference both to him and to his wife. + +"Well, as you're so desperately wise, perhaps you'll kindly tell me what +we _are_ to do." + +"I might borrow money on my insurance policy--and speculate," said Mr. +Prohack gravely. + +"Oh! Arthur! Do you really think you--" Marian showed a wild gleam of +hope. + +"Or I might throw the money into the Serpentine," Mr. Prohack added. + +"Oh! Arthur! I could kill you. I never know how to take you." + +"No, you never do. That's the worst of a woman like you marrying a man +like me." + +They discussed devices. One servant fewer. No holiday. Cinemas instead +of theatres. No books. No cigarettes. No taxis. No clothes. No meat. No +telephone. No friends. They reached no conclusion. Eve referred to +Adam's great Treasury mind. Adam said that his great Treasury mind +should function on the problem during the day, and further that the +problem must be solved that very night. + +"I'll tell you one thing I shall do," said Mrs. Prohack in a decided +tone as Mr. Prohack left the table. "I shall countermand Sissie'a new +frock." + +"If you do I shall divorce you," was the reply. + +"But why?" + +Mr. Prohack answered: + +"In 1917 I saw that girl in dirty overalls driving a thundering great +van down Whitehall. Yesterday I met her in her foolish high heels and +her shocking openwork stockings and her negligible dress and her exposed +throat and her fur stole, and she was so delicious and so absurd and so +futile and so sure of her power that--that--well, you aren't going to +countermand any new frock. That chit has the right to ruin me--not +because of anything she's done, but because she _is_. I am ready to +commit peccadilloes, but not crimes. Good morning, my dove." + +And at the door, discreetly hiding her Chinese raiment behind the door, +Eve said, as if she had only just thought of it, though she had been +thinking of it for quite a quarter of an hour: + +"Darling, there's your clubs." + +"What about my clubs?" + +"Don't they cost you a lot of money?" + +"No. Besides I lunch at my clubs--better and cheaper than at any +restaurant. And I shouldn't have time to come home for lunch." + +"But do you need two clubs?" + +"I've always belonged to two clubs. Every one does." + +"But why _two_?" + +"A fellow must have a club up his sleeve." + +"_Couldn't_ you give up one?" + +"Lady, it's unthinkable. You don't know what you're suggesting. Abandon +one of my clubs that my father put me up for when I was a boy! I'd as +soon join a Trade Union. No! My innocent but gluttonous children shall +starve first." + +"I shall give up _my_ club!" + +"Ah! But that's different." + +"How is it different?" "You scarcely ever speak to a soul in your club. +The food's bad in your club. They drink liqueurs before dinner at your +club. I've seen 'em. Your club's full every night of the most formidable +spinsters each eating at a table alone. Give up your club by all means. +Set fire to it and burn it down. But don't count the act as a +renunciation. You hate your club. Good morning, my dove." + + +IV + +One advantage of the situation of Mr. Prohack's house was that his path +therefrom to the Treasury lay almost entirely through verdant +parks--Hyde Park, the Green Park, St. James's Park. Not infrequently he +referred to the advantage in terms of bland satisfaction. True, in wet +weather the advantage became a disadvantage. + +During his walk through verdant parks that morning, the Terror of the +Departments who habitually thought in millions was very gloomy. +Something resembling death was in his heart. Humiliation also was +certainly in his heart, for he felt that, no matter whose the fault, he +was failing in the first duty of a man. He raged against the Chancellor +of the Exchequer. He sliced off the head of the Chancellor of the +Exchequer with his stick. (But it was only an innocent autumn +wildflower, perilously blooming.) And the tang in the air foretold the +approach of winter and the grip of winter--the hell of the poor. + +Near Whitehall he saw the advertisement of a firm of shop-specialists: + +"BRING YOUR BUSINESS TROUBLES TO US." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +FROM THE DEAD + +I + + + +"WELL, Milton, had a good holiday?" said Mr. Prohack to the hall-porter +on entering his chief club for lunch that day. + +"No, sir," said the hall-porter, who was a realist. + +"Ah, well," said Mr. Prohack soothingly. "Perhaps not a bad thing. +There's nothing like an unsatisfactory holiday for reconciling us all to +a life of toil, is there?" + +"No, sir," said Milton, impassively, and added: "Mr. Bishop has just +called to see you, sir. I told him you'd probably be in shortly. He said +he wouldn't wait but he might look in again." + +"Thanks," said Mr. Prohack. "If he does, I shall be either in the +coffee-room or upstairs." + +Mr. Prohack walked into the majestic interior of the Club, which had +been closed, rather later than usual, for its annual cleaning. He +savoured anew and more sharply the beauty and stateliness of its +architecture, the elaboration of its conveniences, the severe splendour +of its luxury. And he saw familiar and congenial faces, and on every +face was a mild joy similar to the joy which he himself experienced in +the reopening of the Club. And he was deliciously aware of the "club +feeling," unlike, and more agreeable than, any other atmosphere of an +organism in the world. + +The Club took no time at all to get into its stride after the closure. +It opened its doors and was instantly its full self. For hundreds of +grave men in and near London had risen that very morning from their beds +uplifted by the radiant thought: "To-day I can go to the Club again." +Mr. Prohack had long held that the noblest, the most civilised +achievement of the British character was not the British Empire, nor the +House of Commons, nor the steam-engine, nor aniline dyes, nor the +music-hall, but a good West End club. And somehow at the doors of a good +West End club there was an invisible magic sieve, through which the +human body could pass but through which human worries could not pass. + +This morning, however, Mr. Prohack perceived that one worry could pass +through the sieve, namely a worry concerning the Club itself.... Give +up the Club? Was the sacrifice to be consummated? Impossible! Could he +picture himself strolling down St. James's Street without the right to +enter the sacred gates--save as a guest? And supposing he entered as a +guest, could he bear the hall-porter to say to him: "If you'll take a +seat, sir, I'll send and see if Mr. Blank is in the Club. What name, +sir?" Impossible! Yet Milton would be capable of saying just that. +Milton would never pardon a defection.... Well, then, he must give up +the other club. But the other--and smaller--Club had great qualities of +its own. Indeed it was indispensable. And could he permit the day to +dawn on which he would no longer be entitled to refer to "my other +club"? Impossible! Nevertheless he had decided to give up his other +club. He must give it up, if only to keep even with his wife. The +monetary saving would be unimportant, but the act would be spectacular. +And Mr. Prohack perfectly comprehended the value of the spectacular in +existence. + + +II + +He sat down to lunch among half a dozen cronies at one of the larger +tables in a window-embrasure of the vaulted coffee-room with its +precious portrait of that historic clubman, Charles James Fox, and he +ordered himself the cheapest meal that the menu could offer, and poured +himself out a glass of water. + +"Same old menu!" remarked savagely Mr. Prohack's great crony, Sir Paul +Spinner, the banker, who suffered from carbuncles and who always drove +over from the city in the middle of the day. + +"Here's old Paul grumbling again!" said Sims of Downing Street. "After +all, this is the best club in London." + +"It certainly is," said Mr. Prohack, "when it's closed. During the past +four weeks this club has been the most perfect institution on the face +of the earth." + +They all laughed. And they began recounting to each other the +unparalleled miseries and indignities which such of them as had remained +in London had had to endure in the clubs that had "extended their +hospitality" to members of the closed club. The catalogue of ills was +terrible. Yes, there was only one club deserving of the name. + +"Still," said Sir Paul. "They might give us a rest from prunes and +rice." + +"This club," said Mr. Prohack, "like all other clubs, is managed by a +committee of Methuselahs who can only digest prunes and rice." And +after a lot more talk about the idiosyncrasies of clubs he said, with a +casual air: "For myself, I belong to too many clubs." + +Said Hunter, a fellow official of the Treasury: + +"But I thought you only had two clubs, Arthur." + +"Only two. But it's one too many. In fact I'm not sure if it isn't two +too many." + +"Are you getting disgusted with human nature?" Sims suggested. + +"No," said Mr. Prohack. "I'm getting hard up. I've committed the +greatest crime in the world. I've committed poverty. And I feel guilty." + +And the truth was that he did feel guilty. He was entirely innocent; he +was a victim; he had left undone nothing that he ought to have done; but +he felt guilty, thus proving that poverty is indeed seriously a crime +and that those who in sardonic jest describe it as a crime are deeper +philosophers than they suppose. + +"Never say die," smiled the monocled Mixon, a publisher of scientific +works, and began to inveigh against the Government as an ungrateful and +unscrupulous employer and exploiter of dutiful men in an inferno of +rising prices. But the rest thought Mixon unhappy in his choice of +topic. Hunter of the Treasury said nothing. What was there to say that +would not tend to destroy the true club atmosphere? Even the beloved +Prohack had perhaps failed somewhat in tact. They all understood, they +all mildly sympathised, but they could do no more--particularly in a +miscellaneous assemblage of eight members. No, they felt a certain +constraint; and in a club constraint should be absolutely unknown. Some +of them glanced uneasily about the crowded, chattering room. + + +III + +It was then, that a remarkable coincidence occurred. + +"I saw Bishop at Inverness last week," said Sir Paul Spinner to Mr. +Prohack, apropos of nothing whatever. "Seems he's got a big moor this +year in Sutherlandshire. So I suppose he's recovered from his overdose +of shipping shares." + +Bishop (Fred Ferrars) was a financier with a cheerful, negligent +attitude towards the insecurities and uncertainties of a speculative +existence. He was also a close friend of Prohack, of Sir Paul, and of +several others at the table, and a member of Prohack's secondary club, +though not of his primary club. + +"That's strange," said Mr. Prohack. "I hear he's in London." + +"He most positively isn't in London," said Sir Paul. "He's not coming +back until November." + +"Then that shows how little the evidence of the senses can be relied +upon," remarked Mr. Prohack gently. "According to the hall-porter he +called here for me a few minutes ago, and he may call again." + +The banker grunted. "The deuce he did! Does that mean he's in some fresh +trouble, I wonder?" + +At the same moment a page-girl, the smart severity of whose uniform was +mitigated by a pig-tail and a bow of ribbon, approached Mr. Prohack's +chair, and, bending her young head to his ear, delivered to him with the +manner of a bearer of formidable secrets: + +"Mr. Bishop to see you, sir." + +"There he is!" exclaimed Mr. Prohack. "Now he's bound to want lunch. Why +on earth can't we bring guests in here? Waitress, have the lunch I've +ordered served in the guests' dining-room, please.... No doubt Bishop +and I'll see you chaps upstairs later." + +He went off to greet and welcome Bishop, full of joy at the prospect of +tasting anew the rich personality of his old friend. It is true that he +had a qualm about the expense of standing Bishop a lunch--a fellow who +relished his food and drink and could distinguish between the best and +the second best; but on the other hand he could talk very freely to +Bishop concerning the crisis in which he found himself; and he knew that +Bishop would not allow Bishop's affairs, however troublesome they might +be, unduly to bother _him_. + +Bishop was not on the bench in the hall where visitors were appointed to +wait. Only one man was on the bench, a spectacled, red-faced person. Mr. +Prohack glanced about. Then the page-girl pointed to the spectacled +person, who jumped up and approached Mr. Prohack somewhat effusively. + +"How d'ye do, Prohack?" + +"Well, _Bishop_!" Mr. Prohack responded. "It's _you_!" + +It was another Bishop, a Bishop whom he had forgotten, a Bishop who had +resigned from the club earlier and disappeared. Mr. Prohack did not like +him. Mr. Prohack said to himself: "This fellow is after something, and I +always knew he was an adventurer." + +"Funny feeling it gives you to be asked to wait in the hall of a club +that you used to belong to!" said Bishop. + +The apparently simple words, heavy with sinister significance, sank +like a depth-charge into Mr. Prohack's consciousness. + +"Among other things," said Mr. Prohack to himself, "this fellow is very +obviously after a free lunch." + +Now Mr. Prohack suffered from a strange form of insincerity, which he +had often unsuccessfully tried to cure, partly because it advantaged +unsympathetic acquaintances at his expense, and partly because his wife +produced unanswerable arguments against it with mortal effect. Although +an unconceited man (as men go), and a very honest man, he could not help +pretending to like people whom he did not like. And he pretended with a +histrionic skill that deceived everybody--sometimes even himself. There +may have been some good-nature in this moral twist of his; but he well +knew that it originated chiefly in three morbid desires,--the desire to +please, the desire to do the easiest thing, and the desire to nourish +his reputation for amiability. + +So that when the unexpected Mr. Bishop (whose Christian name was Softly) +said to him: "I won't keep you now. Only I was passing and I want you to +be kind enough to make an early appointment with me at some time and +place entirely convenient to yourself," Mr. Prohack proceeded to +persuade Mr. Bishop to stay to lunch, there being no sort of reason in +favour of such a course, and various sound reasons against it. Mr. +Prohack deceived Mr. Softly Bishop as follows: + +"No time and place like the present. You must stay to lunch. This is +your old club and you must stay to lunch." + +"But you've begun your lunch," Bishop protested. + +"I've not. The fact is, I was half expecting you to look in again. The +hall-porter told me...." And Mr. Prohack actually patted Mr. Bishop on +the shoulder--a trick he had. "Come now, don't tell me you've got +another lunch appointment. It's twenty-five to two." And to himself, +leading Mr. Bishop to the strangers' dining-room, he said: "Why should I +further my own execution in this way?" + +He ordered a lunch as copious and as costly as he would have ordered for +the other, the real Bishop. Powerful and vigorous in some directions, +Mr. Prohack's mentality was deplorably weak in at least one other. + +Mr. Softly Bishop was delighted with his reception, and Mr. Prohack +began to admit that Mr. Bishop had some personal charm. Nevertheless +when the partridge came, Mr. Prohack acidly reflected: + +"I'm offering this fellow a portion of my daughter's new frock on a +charger!" + +They talked of the club, Mr. Bishop as a former member being surely +entitled to learn all about it, and then they talked about clubs in the +United States, where Mr. Bishop had spent recent years. But Mr. Bishop +persisted in giving no hint of his business. + +"It must be something rather big and annoying," thought Mr. Prohack, and +ordered another portion of his daughter's new frock in the shape of +excellent cigars. + +"You don't mean to say we can smoke _here_," exclaimed Mr. Bishop. + +"Yes," said Mr. Prohack. "Not in the members' coffee-room, but we can +here. Stroke of genius on the part of the Committee! You see it tends to +keep guests out of the smoking-room, which for a long time has been +getting uncomfortably full after lunch." + +"Good God!" murmured Mr. Bishop simply. + + + + +IV + + +And he added at once, as he lighted the Corona Corona: "Well, I'd better +tell you what I've come to see you about. You remember that chap, Silas +Angmering?" + +"Silas Angmering? Of course I do. Used to belong here. He cleared off to +America ages ago." + +"He did. And you lent him a hundred pounds to help him to clear off to +America." + +"Who told you?" + +"He did," said Mr. Bishop, with a faint, mysterious smile. + +"What's happened to him?" + +"Oh! All sorts of things. He made a lot of money out of the war. He +established himself in Cincinnati. And there were opportunities...." + +"How came he to tell you that I'd lent him anything?" Mr. Prohack +interrupted sharply. + +"I had business with him at one time--before the war and also just after +the war began. Indeed I was in partnership with him." Mr. Bishop spoke +with a measured soothing calmness. + +"And you say he's made a lot of money out of the war. What do you +mean--a lot?" + +"Well," said Mr. Bishop, looking at the tablecloth through his +glittering spectacles, "I mean a _lot_." + +His tone was confidential; but then his tone was always confidential. +He continued: "He's lost it all since." + +"Pity he didn't pay me back my hundred pounds while he'd got it! How did +he lose his money?" + +"In the same way as most rich men lose their money," answered Mr. +Bishop. "He died." + +Although Mr. Prohack would have been capable of telling a similar story +in a manner very similar to Mr. Bishop's, he didn't quite relish his +guest's theatricality. It increased his suspicion of his guest, and +checked the growth of friendliness which the lunch had favoured. Still, +he perceived that there was a good chance of getting his hundred pounds +back, possibly with interest--and the interest would mount up to fifty +or sixty pounds. And a hundred and fifty pounds appeared to him to be an +enormous sum. Then it occurred to him that probably Mr. Bishop was not +indeed "after" anything and that he had been unjust to Mr. Bishop. + +"Married?" he questioned, casually. + +"Angmering? No. He never married. You know as well as anybody, I expect, +what sort of a card he was. No relations, either." + +"Then who's come into his money?" + +"Well," said Mr. Bishop, with elaborate ease and smoothness of quiet +delivery. "I've come into some of it. And there was a woman--actress +sort of young thing--about whom perhaps the less said the better--she's +come into some of it. And you've come into some of it. We share it in +equal thirds." + +"The deuce we do!" + +"Yes." + +"How long's he been dead?" + +"About five weeks or less. I sailed as soon as I could after he was +buried. I'd arranged before to come. I daresay I ought to have stayed a +bit longer, as I'm the executor under the will, but I wanted to come, +and I've got a very good lawyer over there--and over here too. I landed +this morning, and here I am. Strictly speaking I suppose I should have +cabled you. But it seemed to me that I could explain better by word of +mouth." + +"I wish you would explain," said Mr. Prohack. "You say he's been rich a +long time, but he didn't pay his debt to me, and yet he goes and makes a +will leaving me a third of his fortune. Wants some explaining, doesn't +it?" + +Mr. Bishop replied: + +"It does and it doesn't. You knew he was a champion postponer, poor old +chap. Profoundly unbusinesslike. It's astonishing how unbusinesslike +successful men are! He was always meaning to come to England to see you; +but he never found time. He constantly talked of you--" + +"But do you know," Mr. Prohack intervened, "that from that day to this +I've never heard one single word from him? Not even a picture-postcard. +And what's more I've never heard a single word _of_ him." + +"Just like Silas, that was! Just!... He died from a motor accident. He +was perfectly conscious and knew he'd only a few hours to live. Spine. +He made his will in hospital, and died about a couple of hours after +he'd made it. I wasn't there myself. I was in New York." + +"Well, well!" muttered Mr. Prohack. "Poor fellow! Well, well! This is +the most amazing tale I ever heard in my life." + +"It _is_ rather strange," Mr. Bishop compassionately admitted. + +A silence fell--respectful to the memory of the dead. The members' +coffee-room seemed to Mr. Prohack to be a thousand miles off, and the +chat with his cronies at the table in the window-embrasure to have +happened a thousand years ago. His brain was in anarchy, and waving like +a flag above the anarchy was the question: "How much did old Silas +leave?" But the deceitful fellow would not permit the question to utter +itself,--he had dominion over himself at any rate to that extent. He +would not break the silence; he would hide his intense curiosity; he +would force Softly Bishop to divulge the supreme fact upon his own +initiative. + +And at length Mr. Bishop remarked, musingly: + +"Yes. Thanks to the exchange being so low, you stand to receive at the +very least a hundred thousand pounds clear--after all deductions have +been made." + +"Do I really?" said Mr. Prohack, also musingly. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE LAW + + +His tranquil tone disguised the immense anarchy within. Silas Angmering +had evidently been what is called a profiteer. He had made his money +"out of the war." And Silas was an Englishman. While Englishmen, +and--later--Americans, had given up lives, sanity, fortunes, limbs, +eyesight, health, Silas had gained riches. There was nothing highly +unusual in this. Mr. Prohack had himself seen, in the very club in which +he was now entertaining Softly Bishop, a man who had left an arm in +France chatting and laughing with a man who had picked up over a million +pounds by following the great principle that a commodity is worth what +it will fetch when people want it very badly and there is a shortage of +it. Mr. Prohack too had often chatted and laughed with this same +picker-up of a million, who happened to be a quite jolly and generous +fellow. Mr. Prohack would have chatted and laughed with Barabbas, +convinced as he was that iniquity is the result of circumstances rather +than of deliberate naughtiness. He seldom condemned. He had greatly +liked Silas Angmering, who was a really educated and a well-intentioned +man with a queer regrettable twist in his composition. That Silas should +have profiteered when he got the chance was natural. Most men would do +the same. Most heroes would do the same. The man with one arm would +conceivably do the same. + +But between excusing and forgiving a brigand (who has not despoiled +_you_), and sharing his plunder, there was a gap, a chasm. + +Few facts gave Mr. Prohack a more serene and proud satisfaction than the +fact that he had materially lost through the war. He was positively glad +that he had lost, and that the Government, his employer, had treated him +badly.... And now to become the heir of a profiteer! Nor was that all! +To become the co-heir with a woman of dubious renown, and with Mr. +Softly Bishop! He knew nothing about the woman, and would think nothing. +But he knew a little about Mr. Softly Bishop. Mr. Bishop, it used to be +known and said in the club, had never had a friend. He had the usual +number of acquaintances, but no relationship more intimate. Mr. Prohack, +in the old days, had not for a long time actively disliked Mr. Bishop; +but he had been surprised at the amount of active dislike which contact +with Mr. Bishop engendered in other members of the club. Why such +dislike? Was it due to his fat, red face, his spectacles, his +conspiratorial manner, tone and gait, the evenness of his temper, his +cautiousness, his mysteriousness? Nobody knew. In the end Mr. Prohack +also had succeeded in disliking him. But Mr. Prohack produced a reason, +and that reason was Mr. Bishop's first name. On it being pointed out to +Mr. Prohack by argufiers that Mr. Bishop was not responsible for his +first name, Mr. Prohack would reply that the mentality of parents +capable of bestowing on an innocent child the Christian name of Softly +was incomprehensible and in a high degree suspicious, and that therefore +by the well-known laws of heredity there must be something devilish odd +in the mentality of their offspring--especially seeing that the +offspring pretended to glory in the Christian name as being a fine old +English name. No! Mr. Prohack might stomach co-heirship with a far-off +dubious woman; but could he stomach co-heirship with Softly Bishop? It +would necessitate friendship with Mr. Bishop. It would bracket him for +ever with Mr. Bishop. + +These various considerations, however, had little to do with the immense +inward anarchy that Mr. Prohack's tone had concealed as he musingly +murmured: "Do I really?" The disturbance was due almost exclusively to a +fierce imperial joy in the prospect of immediate wealth. The origin of +the wealth scarcely affected him. The associations of the wealth +scarcely affected him. He understood in a flash the deep wisdom of that +old proverb (whose truth he had often hitherto denied) that money has no +smell. Perhaps there might be forty good reasons against his accepting +the inheritance, but they were all ridiculous. Was he to abandon his +share of the money to Softly Bishop and the vampire-woman? Such a notion +was idiotic. It was contrary to the robust and matter-of-fact +commonsense which always marked his actions--if not his theories. No +more should his wife be compelled to scheme out painfully the employment +of her housekeeping allowance. Never again should there be a question +about a new frock for his daughter. He was conscious, before anything +else, of a triumphant protective and spoiling tenderness for his women. +He would be absurd with his women. He would ruin their characters with +kindness and with invitations to be capricious and exacting and +expensive and futile. They nobly deserved it. He wanted to shout and to +sing and to tell everybody that he would not in future stand any d----d +nonsense from anybody. He would have his way. + +"Why!" thought he, pulling himself up. "I've developed all the +peculiarities of a millionaire in about a minute and a half." + +And again, he cried to himself, in the vast and imperfectly explored +jungle that every man calls his heart: + +"Ah! I could not have borne to give up either of my clubs! No! I was +deceiving myself. I could not have done it! I could not have done it! +Anything rather than that. I see it now.... By the way, I wonder what +all the fellows will say when they know! And how shall I break it to +them? Not to-day! Not to-day! To-morrow!" + +At the moment when Mr. Prohack ought to have been resuming his +ill-remunerated financial toil for the nation at the Treasury, Bishop +suggested in his offhand murmuring style that they might pay a visit to +the City solicitor who was acting in England for him and the Angmering +estate. Mr. Prohack opposingly suggested that national duty called him +elsewhere. + +"Does that matter--now?" said Bishop, and his accents were charged with +meaning. + +Mr. Prohack saw that it did not matter, and that in future any nation +that did not like his office-hours would have to lump them. He feared +greatly lest he might encounter some crony-member on his way out of the +club with Bishop. If he did, what should he say, how should he carry off +the situation? (For he was feeling mysteriously guilty, just as he had +felt guilty an hour earlier. Not guilty as the inheritor of profiteering +in particular, but guilty simply as an inheritor. It might have been +different if he had come into the money in reasonable instalments, say +of five thousand pounds every six months. But a hundred thousand +unearned increment at one coup...!) Fortunately the cronies were still +in the smoking-room. He swept Bishop from the club, stealthily, swiftly. +Bishop had a big motor-car waiting at the door. + + +III + +He offered no remark as to the car, and Mr. Prohack offered no remark. +But Mr. Prohack was very interested in the car--he who had never been +interested in cars. And he was interested in the clothes and in the +deportment of the chauffeur. He was indeed interested in all sorts of +new things. The window of a firm of house-agents who specialised in +country houses, the jewellers' shops, the big hotels, the advertisements +of theatres and concerts, the establishments of trunk-makers and of +historic second-hand booksellers and of equally historic wine-merchants. +He saw them all with a fresh eye. London suddenly opened to him its +possibilities as a bud opens its petals. + +"Not a bad car they; hired out to me," said Bishop at length, with +casual approval. + +"You've hired it?" + +"Oh, yes!" + +And shortly afterwards Bishop said: + +"It's fantastic the number of cars there are in use in America. You know +it's a literal fact that almost every American family has a car. For +instance, whenever there's a big meeting of strikers in New York, all +the streets near the hall are blocked with cars." + +Mr. Prohack had food for reflection. His outlook upon life was changed. + +And later Bishop said, again apropos of nothing: + +"Of course it's only too true that the value of money has fallen by +about half. But on the other hand interest has about doubled. You can +get ten per cent on quite safe security in these days. Even Governments +have to pay about seven--as you know." + +"Yes," concurred Mr. Prohack. + +Ten thousand pounds a year! + +And then he thought: + +"What an infernal nuisance it would be if there was a revolution! Oh! +But there couldn't be. It's unthinkable. Revolution everywhere, yes; but +not in England or America!" + +And he saw with the most sane and steady insight that the final duty of +a Government was to keep order. Change there must be, but let change +come gradually. Injustices must be remedied, naturally, but without any +upheaval! Yet in the club some of the cronies (and he among them), after +inveighing against profiteers and against the covetousness of trades +unions, had often held that "a good red revolution" was the only way of +knocking sense into the heads of these two classes. + +The car got involved in a block of traffic near the Mansion House, and +rain began to fall. The two occupants of the car watched each other +surreptitiously, mutually suspicious, like dogs. Scraps of talk were +separated by long intervals. Mr. Prohack wondered what the deuce Softly +Bishop had done that Angmering should leave him a hundred thousand +pounds. He tried to feel grief for the tragic and untimely death of his +old friend Angmering, and failed. No doubt the failure was due to the +fact that he had not seen Angmering for so many years. + +At last Mr. Prohack, his hands in his pockets, his legs stretched out, +his gaze uplifted, he said suddenly: + +"I suppose it'll hold water?" + +"What? The roof of the car?" + +"No. The will." + +Mr. Softly Bishop gave a short laugh, but made no other answer. + + +IV + +The car halted finally before an immense new block of buildings, and the +inheritors floated up to the fifth floor in a padded lift manned by a +brilliantly-uniformed attendant. Mr. Prohack saw "Smathe and Smathe" in +gilt on a glass door. The enquiry office resembled the ante-room of a +restaurant, as the whole building resembled a fashionable hotel. +Everywhere was mosaic flooring. + +"Mr. Percy Smathe?" demanded Bishop of a clerk whose head glittered in +the white radiance of a green-shaded lamp. + +"I'll see, sir. Please step into the waiting-room." And he waved a +patronising negligent hand. "What name?" he added. + +"Have you forgotten my name already?" Mr. Bishop retorted sharply. +"Bishop. Tell Mr. Percy Smathe I'm here. At once, please." + +And he led Mr. Prohack to the waiting-room, which was a magnificent +apartment with stained glass windows, furnished in Chippendale similar +to, but much finer than, the furnishing of Mr. Prohack's own house. On +the table were newspapers and periodicals. Not _The Engineering Times_ +of April in the previous year or a _Punch_ of the previous decade, and +_The Vaccination Record_; but such things as the current _Tatler, Times, +Economist_, and _La Vie Parisienne._ + +Mr. Prohack had uncomfortable qualms of apprehension. For several +minutes past he had been thinking: "Suppose there _is_ something up with +that will!" He had little confidence in Mr. Softly Bishop. And now the +aspect of the solicitors' office frightened him. It had happened to him, +being a favourite trustee of his relations and friends, to visit the +offices of some of the first legal firms in Lincoln's Inn Fields. You +entered these lairs by a dirty door and a dirty corridor and another +dirty door. You were interrogated by a shabby clerk who sat on a foul +stool at a foul desk in a foul office. And finally after an interval in +a cubby hole that could not boast even _The Anti-Vaccination Record_, +you were driven along a dirtier passage into a dirtiest room whose +windows were obscured by generations of filth, and in that room sat a +spick and span lawyer of great name who was probably an ex-president of +the Incorporated Law Society. The offices of Smathe and Smathe +corresponded with alarming closeness to Mr. Prohack's idea of what a +bucket-shop might be. Mr. Prohack had the gravest fears for his hundred +thousand pounds. + +"This is the solicitor's office new style," said Bishop, who seemed to +have an uncanny gift of reading thoughts. "Very big firm. +Anglo-American. Smathe and Smathe are two cousins. Percy's American. +English mother. They specialise in what I may call the international +complication business, pleasant and unpleasant." + +Mr. Prohack was not appreciably reassured. Then a dapper, youngish man +with a carnation in his buttonhole stepped neatly into the room, and +greeted Bishop in a marked American accent. + +"Here I am again," said Bishop curtly. "Mr. Prohack, may I introduce Mr. +Percy Smathe?" + +"Mr. Prohack, I'm delighted to make your acquaintance." + +Mr. Prohack beheld the lawyer's candid, honest face, heard his tones of +extreme deference, and noted that he had come to the enquiry room to +fetch his clients. + +"There's only one explanation of this," said Mr. Prohack to himself. +"I'm a genuinely wealthy person." + +And in Mr. Percy Smathe's private room he listened but carelessly to a +long legal recital. Details did not interest him. He knew he was all +right. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +EVE'S HEADACHE + +I + + +That afternoon Mr. Prohack just got back to his bank before closing +time. He had negligently declined to comprehend a very discreet hint +from Mr. Percy Smathe that if he desired ready money he could have +it--in bulk. Nevertheless he did desire to feel more money than usual in +his pocket, and he satisfied this desire at the bank, where the +September quarter of his annual salary lay almost intact. His bank was +near Hanover Square, a situation inconvenient for him, but he had chosen +that particular branch because its manager happened to be a friend of +his. The Prohack account did no good to the manager personally, and only +infinitesimal good to the vast corporation of which the branch-manager +was the well-dressed, well-spoken serf. The corporation was a sort of +sponge prodigiously absorbent but incapable of being squeezed. The +manager could not be of the slightest use to Mr. Prohack in a financial +crisis, for the reason that he was empowered to give no accommodation +whatever without the consent of the head office. Still, Mr. Prohack, +being a vigorous sentimentalist, as all truly wise men are, liked to +bank with a friend. On the present occasion he saw the branch-manager, +Insott by name, explained that he wanted some advice, and made an +appointment to meet the latter at the latter's club, the Oriental, at +six-thirty. + +Thereupon he returned to the Treasury, and from mere high fantasy spread +the interesting news that he had broken a back tooth at lunch and had +had to visit his dentist at Putney. His colleague, Hunter, remarked to +him that he seemed strangely gay for a man with a broken tooth, and Mr. +Prohack answered that a philosopher always had resources of fortitude +within himself. He then winked--a phenomenon hitherto unknown at the +Treasury. He stayed so late at his office that he made the acquaintance +of two charwomen, whom he courteously chaffed. He was defeated in the +subsequent encounter, and acknowledged the fact by two half-crowns. + +At the Oriental Club he told Insott that he might soon have some money +to invest; and he was startled and saddened to discover that Insott knew +almost nothing about exciting investments, or about anything at all, +except the rigours of tube travel to Golder's Green. Insott had sunk +into a deplorable groove. When, confidential, Insott told him the salary +of a branch-manager of a vast corporation near Hanover Square, and +incidentally mentioned that a bank-clerk might not marry without the +consent in writing of the vast corporation, Mr. Prohack understood and +pardoned the deep, deplorable groove. Insott could afford a club simply +because his father, the once-celebrated authority on Japanese armour, +had left him a hundred and fifty a year. Compared to the ruck of +branch-managers Insott was a free and easy plutocrat. + +As he departed from the Oriental Mr. Prohack sighed: "Poor Insott!" A +sturdy and even exultant cheerfulness was, however, steadily growing in +him. Poor Insott, unaware that he had been talking to a man with an +assured income of ten thousand pounds a year, had unconsciously helped +that man to realise the miracle of his own good fortune. + +Mr. Prohack's route home lay through a big residential square or so and +along residential streets of the first quality. All the houses were big, +and they seemed bigger in the faint October mist. It was the hour after +lighting up and before the drawing of blinds and curtains. Mr. Prohack +had glimpses of enormous and magnificent interiors,--some right in the +sky, some on the ground--with carved ceilings, rich candelabra, heavily +framed pictures, mighty furniture, statuary, and superb and nonchalant +menials engaged in the pleasant task of shutting away those interiors +from the vulgar gaze. The spectacle continued furlong upon furlong, +monotonously. There was no end to the succession of palaces of the +wealthy. Then it would be interrupted while Mr. Prohack crossed a main +thoroughfare, where scores of young women struggled against a few men +for places in glittering motor-buses that were already packed with +successful fighters for room in them. And then it would be resumed again +in its majesty. + +The sight of the street-travellers took Mr. Prohack's mind back to +Insott. He felt a passionate sympathy for the Insotts of the world, and +also for the Prohacks of six hours earlier. Once Mr. Prohack had been in +easier circumstances; but those circumstances, thanks to the ambitions +of statesmen and generals, and to the simplicity of publics, had +gradually changed from easy to distressed. He saw with terrible +clearness from what fate the Angmering miracle had saved him and his. He +wanted to reconstruct society in the interest of those to whom no +miracle had happened. He wanted to do away with all excessive wealth; +and by "excessive" he meant any degree of wealth beyond what would be +needed for the perfect comfort of himself, Mr. Prohack,--a reasonable +man if ever there was one! Ought he not to devote his fortune to the +great cause of reconstructing society? Could he enjoy his fortune while +society remain unreconstructed? Well, societies were not to be +reconstructed by the devoting of fortunes to the work. Moreover, if he +followed such an extreme course he would be regarded as a crank, and he +could not have borne to be regarded as a crank. He detested cranks more +than murderers or even profiteers. As for enjoying his fortune in +present circumstances, he thought that he might succeed in doing so, and +that anyhow it was his duty to try. He was regrettably inconsistent. + + + +II + + +Having entered his house as it were surreptitiously, and avoided his +children, Mr. Prohack peeped through the half-open door between the +conjugal bedroom and the small adjoining room, which should have been a +dressing-room, but which Mrs. Prohack styled her boudoir. He espied her +standing sideways in front of the long mirror, her body prettily curved +and her head twisted over her shoulder so that she could see +three-quarters of her back in the mirror. An attitude familiar to Mr. +Prohack and one that he liked! She was wearing the Chinese garment of +the morning, but he perceived that she had done something to it. He made +a sharp noise with the handle of the door. She shrieked and started, and +as soon as she had recovered she upbraided him, and as soon as she had +upbraided him she asked him anxiously what he thought of the robe, +explaining that it was really too good for a dressing-gown, that with +careful treatment it would wear for ever, that it could not have been +bought now for a hundred pounds or at least eighty, that it was in +essence far superior to many frocks worn by women who had more money and +less taste than herself, that she had transformed it into a dinner-dress +for quiet evenings at home, and that she had done this as part of her +part of the new economy scheme. It would save all her other frocks, and +as for a dressing-gown, she had two old ones in her reserves. + +Mr. Prohack kissed her and told her to sit down on the little sofa. + +"To see the effect of it sitting down?" she asked. + +"If you like," said he. + +"Then you don't care for it? You think it's ridiculous?" said she +anxiously, when she had sat down. + +He replied, standing in front of her: + +"You know that Oxford Concise Dictionary that I bought just before the +war? Where is it?" + +"Arthur!" she said. "What's the matter with you? You look so queer. I +suppose the dictionary's where you keep it. _I_ never touch it." + +"I want you to be sure to remind me to cross the word 'economy' out of +it to-night. In fact I think I'd better tear out the whole page." + +"Arthur!" she exclaimed again. "Are you ill? Has anything serious +happened? I warn you I can't stand much more to-day." + +"Something very serious has happened," answered the incorrigible Mr. +Prohack. "It may be all for the best; it may be all for the worst. +Depends how you look at it. Anyway I'm determined to tell you. Of course +I shouldn't dream of telling anybody else until I'd told you." He seated +himself by her side. There was just space enough for the two of them on +the sofa. + +"Oh, dear!" sighed Mrs. Prohack, with apprehension, and instinctively +she stretched her arm out and extinguished one of the lights. + +He had been touched by her manoeuvre, half economy and half coquetry, +with the Chinese dress. He was still more touched by the gesture of +extinguishing a light. For a year or two past Mrs. Prohack had been +putting forward a theory that an average degree of illumination tried +her eyes, and the household was now accustomed to twilit rooms in the +evening. Mr. Prohack knew that the recent taste for obscurity had +nothing to do with her eyes and everything to do with her years, but he +pretended to be deceived by her duplicity. Not for millions would he +have given her cause to suspect that he was not perfectly deceived. He +understood and sympathised with her in all her manifestations. He did +not select choice pieces of her character for liking, and dislike or +disapprove of the rest. He took her undivided, unchipped, and liked the +whole of her. It was very strange. + +When he married her he had assumed, but was not sure, that he loved her. +For thirteen or fourteen years she had endangered the bond between them +by what seemed to him to be her caprices, illogicalities, perversities, +and had saved it by her charming demonstrations of affection. During +this period he had remained as it were neutral--an impassive spectator +of her union with a man who happened to be himself. He had observed and +weighed all her faults, and had concluded that she was not worse than +other wives whom he respected. He continued to wonder what it was that +held them together. At length, and very slowly indeed, he had begun to +have a revelation, not of her but of himself. He guessed that he must be +profoundly in love with her and that his original assumption was much +more than accurate,--it was a bull's-eye. His love developed into a +passion, not one of your eruptive, scalding affairs, but something as +placid as an English landscape, with white heat far, far below the +surface. + +He felt how fine and amusing it was to have a genuine, incurable, +illogical passion for a woman,--a passion that was almost an instinct. +He deliberately cultivated it and dwelt on it and enjoyed it. He liked +reflecting upon it. He esteemed that it must be about the most +satisfying experience in the entire realm of sentiment, and that no +other earthly experience of any sort could approach it. He made this +discovery for himself, with the same sensations as if he had discovered +a new star or the circulation of the blood. Of course he knew that +two-thirds of the imaginative literature of the world was based on, and +illustrative of, this great human discovery, and therefore that he was +not exactly a pioneer. No matter! He was a pioneer all the same. + +"Do you remember a fellow named Angmering?" he began, on a note of the +closest confiding intimacy--a note which always flattered and delighted +his wife. + +"Yes." + +"What was he like?" + +"Wasn't he the man that started to run away with Ronnie Philps' wife and +thought better of it and got her out of the train at Crewe and put her +into the London train that was standing at the other platform and left +her without a ticket? Was it Crewe or Rugby--I forget which?" + +"No, no. You're all mixed up. That wasn't Angmering." + +"Well, you have such funny friends, darling. Tell me, then." + +"Angmering never ran away with anybody except himself. He went to +America and before he left I lent him a hundred pounds." + +"Arthur, I'll swear you never told me that at the time. In fact you +always said positively you wouldn't lend money to anybody. You promised +me. I hope he's paid you back." + +"He hasn't. And I've just heard he's dead." + +"I felt that was coming. Yes. I knew from the moment you began to talk +that it was something of that kind. And just when we could do with that +hundred pounds--heaven knows! Oh, Arthur!" + +"He's dead," said Mr. Prohack clinchingly, "but he's left me ten +thousand a year. Ha, ha!--Ha, ha!" He put his hand on her soft shoulder +and gave a triumphant wink. + + * * * * * + + + + +III + + +"Dollars, naturally," said Mrs. Prohack, after listening to various +romantic details. + +"No, pounds." + +"And do you believe it? Are you sure this man Bishop isn't up to some +game? You know anybody can get the better of you, sweetest." + +"Yes," said Mr. Prohack. "I know I'm the greatest and sweetest imbecile +that the Almighty ever created. But I believe it." + +"But _why_ should he leave you all this money? It doesn't stand to +reason." + +"It doesn't. But you see the poor fellow had to leave it to _some_ one. +And he'd no time to think. I expect he just did the first thing that +came into his head and was glad to get it over. I daresay he rather +enjoyed doing it, even if he was in great pain, which I don't think he +was." + +"And who do you say the woman is that's got as much as you have?" + +"I don't say because I don't know." + +"I guarantee _she_ hadn't lent him a hundred pounds," said Mrs. Prohack +with finality. "And you can talk as long as you like about real property +in Cincinnati--what is real property? Isn't all property real?--I shall +begin to believe in the fortune the day you give me a pearl necklace +worth a thousand pounds. And not before." + +"Lady," replied Mr. Prohack, "then I will never give you a pearl +necklace." + +Mrs. Prohack laughed. + +"I know that," she said. + +After a long meditative pause which her husband did not interrupt, she +murmured: "So I suppose we shall be what you call rich?" + +"Some people will undoubtedly call us rich. Others won't." + +"You know we shan't be any happier," she warned him. + +"No," Mr. Prohack agreed. "It's a great trial, besides being a great +bore. But we must stick it." + +"_I_ shan't be any different. So you mustn't expect it." + +"I never have expected it." + +"I wonder what the children will say. Now, Arthur, don't go and tell +them at dinner while the maid's there. I think I'll fetch them up now." + +"You'll do nothing of the kind," said Mr. Prohack sharply. + +"Why not?" + +"Because I can't stand the strain of telling them to-night. Ha-ha!" He +laughed. "I intend to think things over and tell them to-morrow. I've +had quite enough strain for one day." + +"Strain, darling?" + +"Strain. These extremes of heat and cold would try a stronger man than +me." + +"Extremes of heat and cold, darling?" + +"Well, just think how cold it was this morning and how warm it is +to-night." + +"You quaint boy!" she murmured, admiring him. "I quite understand. +Quite. How sensitive you are! But then you always were. Now listen here. +Shall _I_ tell the children?" She gave him a long kiss. + +"No," said he, making prods at her cheek with his finger, and smiling +vaguely. "No. You'll do nothing of the kind. But there's something you +_can_ do for me." + +"Yes?" + +"Will you do it?" + +"Yes." + +"Whatever it is?" + +"If you aren't going to play a trick on me." + +"No. It's no trick. + +"Very well, then." + +"First, you must have one of your best headaches. Second, you must go to +bed at once. Third, you must sprinkle some eau-de-cologne on the bed, to +deceive the lower orders. Fourth, you must be content with some soup for +your dinner, and I'll smuggle you up some dessert in my pocket if you're +hungry. Fifth, you must send word to those children of yours that you +don't wish to be disturbed." + +"But you want to treat me like a baby." + +"And supposing I do! For once, can't you be a baby to oblige me?" + +"But it's too ridiculous! Why do you want me to go to bed?" + +"You know why. Still, I'll tell you. You always like to be told what you +know,--for instance, that I'm in love with you. I can't tell those kids +to-night, and I'm not going to. The rumpus, the conflict of ideas, the +atmospheric disturbance when they do get to know will be terrific, and +I simply won't have it to-night. I must have a quiet evening to think in +or else I shan't sleep. On the other hand, do you suppose I could sit +through dinner opposite you, and you knowing all about it and me knowing +all about it, and both of us pretending that there was nothing unusual +in the air? It's impossible. Either you'd give the show away, or I +should. Or I should burst out laughing. No! I can manage the situation +alone, but I can't manage it if you're there. Hence, lady, you will keep +your kind promise and hop into bed." + +Without another word, but smiling in a most enigmatic manner, Mrs. +Prohack passed into the bedroom. The tyrant lit a cigarette, and +stretched himself all over the sofa. He thought: + +"She's a great woman. She understands. Or at any rate she acts as if she +did. Now how many women in similar circumstances would have--" Etc. Etc. + +He listened to her movements. He had not told her everything, for +example, the profiteering origin of the fortune, and he wondered whether +he had behaved quite nicely in not doing so. + +"Arthur," she called from the bedroom. + +"Hullo?" + +"I do think this is really too silly." + +"You're not paid to think, my girl." + +A pause. + +"Arthur," she called from the bedroom. + +"Hullo?" + +"You're sure you won't blurt it out to them when I'm not there?" + +He only replied: "I'm sorry you've got such a frightful headache, +Marian. You wouldn't have these headaches if you took my advice." + +A pause. + +"I'm in bed." + +"All right. Stay there." + +When he had finished his cigarette, he went into the bedroom. Yes, she +was veritably in bed. + +"You are a pig, Arthur. I wonder how many wives--" + +He put his hand over her mouth. + +"Stop," he said. "I'm not like you. I don't need to be told what I know +already." + +"But really--!" She dropped her head on one side and began to laugh, and +continued to laugh, rather hysterically, until she could not laugh any +more. "Oh, dear! We are the queerest pair!" + +"It is possible," said he. "You've forgotten the eau-de-cologne." He +handed her the bottle. "It is quite possible that we're the queerest +pair, but this is a very serious day in the history of the Prohack +family. The Prohack family has been starving, and some one's given it an +enormous beefsteak. Now it's highly dangerous to give a beefsteak to a +starving person. The consequences might be fatal. That's why it's so +serious. That's why I must have time to think." + +The sound of Sissie playing a waltz on the piano came up from the +drawing-room. Mr. Prohack started to dance all by himself in the middle +of the bedroom floor. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +CHARLIE + +I + + +When Mr. Prohack, in his mature but still rich velvet jacket, came down +to dinner, he found his son Charlie leaning against the mantelpiece in a +new dark brown suit, and studying _The Owner-Driver_. Charlie seemed +never to read anything but motor-car and light-car and side-car and +motor-bicycle periodical literature; but he read it conscientiously, +indefatigably, and completely--advertisements and all. He read it as +though it were an endless novel of passion and he an idle woman deprived +of the society her heart longed for. He possessed a motor-bicycle which +he stabled in a mews behind the Square. He had possessed several such +machines; he bought, altered, and sold them, apparently always with +profit to himself. He had no interest in non-mechanical literature or in +any of the arts. + +"Your mother's gone to bed with a headache," said Mr. Prohack, with a +fair imitation of melancholy. + +"Oh!" said the young man apathetically. His face had a wearied, +disillusioned expression. + +"Is this the latest?" asked his father, indicating the new brown suit. +"My respectful congratulations. Very smart, especially at the waist." + +For a youth who had nothing in the world but what remained of his wound +gratuity and other trifling military emoluments, and what he made out of +commerce in motor-bicycles, Charlie spent a lot in clothes. His mother +had advised his father to "speak to him about it." But his father had +declined to offer any criticism, on the ground that Charlie had fought +in Mesopotamia, Italy and France. Moreover, Charlie had scotched any +possible criticism by asserting that good clothes were all that stood +between him and the ruin of his career. "If I dressed like the dad," he +had once grimly and gloomily remarked, "it would be the beginning of the +end for me." + +"Smart?" he now exclaimed, stepping forward. "Look at that." He advanced +his right leg a little. "Look at that crease. See where it falls?" The +trouser-crease, which, as all wise men know, ought to have fallen +exactly on the centre of the boot-lacing, fell about an inch to the left +thereof. "And I've tried this suit on four times! All the bally tailors +in London seem to think you've got nothing else to do but call and try +on and try on and try on. Never seems to occur to them that they don't +know their business. It's as bad as staff work. However, if this fellow +thinks I'm going to stick these trousers he'll have the surprise of his +life to-morrow morning." The youth spoke in a tone of earnest disgust. + +"My boy," said Mr. Prohack, "you have my most serious sympathy. Your +life must be terribly complicated by this search for perfection." + +"Yes, that's all very well," said Charlie. + +"Where's Sissie?" + +"Hanged if I know!" + +"I heard her playing the piano not five minutes since." + +"So did I." + +Machin, the house-parlourmaid, then intervened: + +"Miss Sissie had a telephone call, and she's gone out, sir." + +"Where to?" + +"She didn't say, sir. She only said she wouldn't be in for dinner, sir. +I made sure she'd told you herself, sir." + +The two men, by means of their eyes, transmitted to each other a +unanimous judgment upon the whole female sex, and sat down to dine alone +in the stricken house. The dinner was extremely frugal, this being the +opening day of Mrs. Prohack's new era of intensive economy, but the +obvious pleasure of Machin in serving only men brightened up somewhat +its brief course. Charlie was taciturn and curt, though not impolite. +Mr. Prohack, whose private high spirits not even the amazing and +inexcusable absence of his daughter could impair, pretended to a decent +woe, and chatted as he might have done to a fellow-clubman on a wet +Sunday night at the Club. + +At the end of the meal Charlie produced the enormous widow's cruse which +he called his cigarette-case and offered his father a cigarette. + +"Doing anything to-night?" asked Mr. Prohack, puffing. + +"No," answered desperately Charlie, puffing. + +"Ring the bell, will you?" + +While Charlie went to the mantelpiece Mr. Prohack secreted an apple for +his starving wife. + +"Machin," said he to the incoming house-parlourmaid, "see if you can +find some port." + +Charlie raised his fatigued eyebrows. + +"Yes, sir," said the house-parlourmaid, vivaciously, and whisked away +her skirts, which seemed to remark: + +"You're quite right to have port. I feel very sorry for you two +attractive gentlemen taking a poor dinner all alone." + +Charlie drank his port in silence and Mr. Prohack watched him. + + + * * * * * + +II + + +Mr. Prohack's son was, in some respects, a great mystery to him. He +could not understand, for instance, how his own offspring could be so +unresponsive to the attractions of the things of the mind, and so +interested in mere machinery and the methods of moving a living or a +lifeless object from one spot on the earth's surface to another. Mr. +Prohack admitted the necessity of machinery, but an automobile had for +him the same status as a child's scooter and no higher. It was an +ingenious device for locomotion. And there for him the matter ended. On +the other hand, Mr. Prohack sympathised with and comprehended his son's +general attitude towards life. Charlie had gone to war from Cambridge at +the age of nineteen. He went a boy, and returned a grave man. He went +thoughtless and light-hearted, and returned full of magnificent and +austere ideals. Six months of England had destroyed these ideals in him. +He had expected to help in the common task of making heaven in about a +fortnight. In the war he had learnt much about the possibilities of +human nature, but scarcely anything about its limitations. His father +tried to warn him, but of course failed. Charlie grew resentful, then +cynical. He saw in England nothing but futility, injustice and +ingratitude. He refused to resume Cambridge, and was bitterly sarcastic +about the generosity of a nation which, through its War Office, was +ready to pay to studious warriors anxious to make up University terms +lost in a holy war decidedly less than it paid to its street-sweepers. +Having escaped from death, the aforesaid warriors were granted the right +to starve their bodies while improving their minds. He might have had +sure situations in vast corporations. He declined them. He spat on them. +He called them "graves." What he wanted was an opportunity to fulfil +himself. He could not get it, and his father could not get it from him. +While searching for it, he frequently met warriors covered with ribbons +but lacking food and shelter not only for themselves but for their women +and children. All this, human nature being what it is, was inevitable, +but his father could not convincingly tell him so. All that Mr. Prohack +could effectively do Mr. Prohack did,--namely, provide the saviour of +Britain with food and shelter. Charlie was restlessly and dangerously +waiting for his opportunity. But he had not developed into a +revolutionist, nor a communist, nor anything of the sort. Oh, no! Quite +the reverse. He meditated a different revenge on society. + +Mr. Prohack knew nothing of this meditated revenge, did not suspect it. +If he had suspected it, he might have felt less compassion than, on this +masculine evening with the unusual port, he did in fact feel. For he was +very sorry for Charlie. He longed to tell him about the fortune, and to +exult with him in the fortune, and to pour, as it were, the fortune into +his lap. He did not care a fig, now, about advisable precautions. He did +not feel the slightest constraint at the prospect of imparting the +tremendous and gorgeous news to his son. He had no desire to reflect +upon the proper method of telling. He merely and acutely wanted to tell, +so that he might see the relief and the joyous anticipation on his son's +enigmatic and melancholy face. But he could not tell because it had been +tacitly agreed with his wife that he should not tell in her absence. +True, he had given no verbal promise, but he had given something just as +binding. + +"Nothing exciting to-day, I suppose," he said, when the silence had +begun to distress him in his secret glee. + +"No," Charlie replied. "I got particulars of an affair at Glasgow, but +it needs money." + +"What sort of an affair?" + +"Oh! Rather difficult to explain. Buying and selling. Usual thing." + +"What money is needed?" + +"I should say three hundred or thereabouts. Might as well be three +thousand so far as I'm concerned." + +"Where did you hear of it?" + +"Club." + +Charlie belonged to a little club in Savile Place where young warriors +told each other what they thought of the nature of society. + +Mr. Prohack drew in his breath with an involuntary gasp, and then said: + +"I expect I could let you have three hundred." + +"_You couldn't!_" + +"I expect I could." Mr. Prohack had never felt so akin to a god. It +seemed to him that he was engaged in the act of creating a future, yea, +a man. Charlie's face changed. He had been dead. He was now suddenly +alive. + +"When?" + +"Well, any time." + +"Now?" + +"Why not?" + +Charlie looked at his watch. + +"Well, I'm much obliged," he said. + + + * * * * * + +III + + +Mr. Prohack had brought a new cheque-book from the Bank. It lay in his +hip-pocket. He had no alternative but to write out a cheque. Three +hundred pounds would nearly exhaust his balance, but that did not +matter. He gave Charlie the cheque. Charlie offered no further +information concerning the "affair" for which the money was required. +And Mr. Prohack did not choose to enquire. Perhaps he was too proud to +enquire. The money would probably be lost. And if it were lost no harm +would be done. Good, rather, for Charlie would have gained experience. +The lad was only a child, after all. + +The lad ran upstairs, and Mr. Prohack sat solitary in delightful +meditation. After a few minutes the lad re-appeared in hat and coat. Mr. +Prohack thought that he had heard a bag dumped in the hall. + +"Where are you off to?" he asked. + +"Glasgow. I shall catch the night-train." + +He rang the bell. + +"Machin, run out and get me a taxi, sharp." + +"Yes, sir." Machin flew. This was the same girl of whom Mrs. Prohack +dared to demand nothing. Mr. Prohack himself would have hesitated to +send her for a taxi. But Charlie ordered her about like a slave and she +seemed to like it. + +"Rather sudden this, isn't it?" said Mr. Prohack, extremely startled by +the turn of events. + +"Well, you've got to be sudden in this world, guv'nor," Charlie replied, +and lit a fresh cigarette. + +Mr. Prohack was again too proud to put questions. Still, he did venture +upon one question: + +"Have you got loose money for your fare?" + +The lad laughed. "Oh, don't let that worry you, guv'nor...!" He looked +at his watch once more. "I wonder whether that infernal girl is +manufacturing that taxi or only fetching it." + +"What must I say to your mother?" demanded Mr. Prohack. + +"Give her my respectful regards." + +The taxi was heard. Machin dashed into the house, and dashed out again +with the bag. The lad clasped his father's hand with a warm vigour that +pleased and reassured Mr. Prohack in his natural bewilderment. It was +not consistent with the paternal dignity to leave the dining-room and +stand, valedictory, on the front-doorstep. + +"Well, I'm dashed!" Mr. Prohack murmured to himself as the taxi drove +away. And he had every right to be dashed. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +SISSIE + +I + + +"Had any dinner?" Mr. Prohack asked his daughter. + +"No." + +"Aren't you hungry?" + +"No, thanks." + +Sissie seized the last remaining apple from the dessert-dish, and bit +into it with her beautiful and efficient teeth. She was slim, and rather +taller than necessary or than she desired to be. A pretty girl, dressed +in a short-skirted, short-sleeved, dark blue, pink-heightened frock that +seemed to combine usefulness with a decent perverse frivolity, and to +carry forward the expression of her face. She had bright brown hair. She +was perfectly mistress of the apple. + +"Where's mother?" + +"In bed with a headache." + +"Didn't she have dinner with you?" + +"She did not. And she doesn't want to be disturbed." + +"Oh! I shan't disturb her, poor thing. I told her this afternoon she +would have one of her headaches." + +"Well," said Mr. Prohack, "that's one of the most remarkable instances +of sound prophecy that I ever came across." + +"Father, what's amusing you?" + +"Nothing." + +"Yes, something is. You've got your funny smile, and you were smiling +all to yourself when I came in." + +"I was thinking. My right to think is almost the only right I possess +that hasn't yet been challenged in this house." + +"Where's Charles?" + +"Gone to Glasgow." + +"Gone to _Glasgow_?" + +"Yes." + +"What, just now?" + +"Ten minutes ago." + +"Whatever has he gone to _Glasgow_ for?" + +"I don't know,--any more than I know why you went out before dinner and +came back after dinner." + +"Would you like to know why I went out?" Sissie spoke with sudden +ingratiatingness. + +"No, not at all. But I should like to know why you went out without +telling anybody. When people are expected to dinner and fail to appear +they usually give notice of the failure." + +"But, father, I told Machin." + +"I said 'anybody.' Don't you know that the whole theory of the society +which you adorn is based on the assumption that Machin is nobody?" + +"I was called away in a frightful hurry, and you and mother were +gossiping upstairs, and it's as much as one's life is worth to disturb +you two when you are together." + +"Oh! That's news." + +"Besides, I should have had to argue with mother, and you know what she +is." + +"You flatter me. I don't even know what _you_ are, and you're elementary +compared to your mother." + +"Anyhow, I'm glad mother's in bed with a headache. I came in here +trembling just now. Mother would have made such a tremendous fuss +although she's perfectly aware that it's not the slightest use making a +fuss.... Only makes me stupid and obstinate. Showers and showers of +questions there'd have been, whereas you haven't asked a single one." + +"Yes, you're rather upset by my lack of curiosity. But let me just point +out that it is not consistent with my paternal duty to sit here and +listen to you slanging your mother. As a daughter you have vast +privileges, but you mustn't presume on them. There are some things I +couldn't stand from any woman without protest." + +"But you must admit that mother _is_ a bit awful when she breaks loose." + +"No. I've never known your mother awful, or even a bit awful." + +"You aren't being intellectually honest, dad." + +"I am." + +"Ah! Well, of course she only shows her best side to _you_." + +"She has no other side. In that sense she is certainly one-sided. Here! +Have another." Mr. Prohack took the apple from his pocket, and threw it +across the table to Sissie, who caught it. + + + + +II + + +Mr. Prohack was extremely happy; and Sissie too, in so far as concerned +the chat with her father, was extremely happy. They adored each other, +and they adored the awful woman laid low with a headache. Sissie's hat +and cloak, which she had dropped carelessly on a chair, slipped to the +floor, the hat carried away by the cloak. Mr. Prohack rose and picked +them up, took them out of the room, and returned. + +"So now you've straightened up, and you're pleased with yourself," +observed Sissie. + +"So now," said he. "Perhaps I may turn on my curiosity tap." + +"Don't," said Sissie. "I'm very gloomy. I'm very disappointed. I might +burst into tears at any moment.... Yes, I'm not joking." + +"Out with it." + +"Oh, it's nothing! It's only that I saw a chance of making some money +and it hasn't come off." + +"But what do you want to make money for?" + +"I like that. Hasn't mother been telling me off and on all day that +something will have to be done?" + +"Done about what?" + +"About economy, naturally." Sissie spoke rather sharply. + +"But you don't mean your mother has spent the day in urging you to go +forth and earn money!" + +"Of course she hasn't, father. How absurd you are! You know very well +mother would hate the idea of me earning money. Hate it! But I mean to +earn some. Surely it's much better to bring more money in than to pinch +and scrape. I loathe pinching and scraping." + +"It's a sound loathing." + +"And I thought I'd got hold of a scheme. But it's too big. I have fifty +pounds odd of my own, but what use is fifty pounds when a hundred's +needed? It's all off and I'm in the last stage of depression." + +She threw away the core of the second apple. + +"Is that port? I'll have some." + +"So that you're short of fifty pounds?" said Mr. Prohack, obediently +pouring out the port--but only half a glass. "Well, I might be able to +let you have fifty pounds myself, if you would deign to accept it." + +Sissie cried compassionately: "But you haven't got a cent, dad!" + +"Oh! Haven't I? Did your mother tell you that?" + +"Well, she didn't exactly say so." + +"I should hope not! And allow me to inform you, my girl, that in +accusing me of not having a cent you're being guilty of the worst +possible taste. Children should always assume that their fathers have +mysterious stores of money, and that nothing is beyond their resources, +and if they don't rise to every demand it's only because in their +inscrutable wisdom they deem it better not to. Or it may be from mere +cussedness." + +"Yes," said Sissie. "That's what I used to think when I was young. But +I've looked up your salary in _Whitaker's Almanac_." + +"It was very improper of you. However, nothing is secret in these days, +and so I don't mind telling you that I've backed a winner to-day--not +to-day, but some little time since--and I can if necessary and agreeable +let you have fifty pounds." + +Mr. Prohack as it were shook his crest in plenary contentment. He had +the same sensation of creativeness as he had had a while earlier with +his son,--a godlike sensation. And he was delighted with his girl. She +was so young and so old. And her efforts to play the woman of the world +with him were so comic and so touching. Only two or three years since +she had been driving a motor-van in order to defeat the Germans. She had +received twenty-eight shillings a week for six days of from twelve to +fourteen hours. She would leave the house at eight and come back at +eight, nine, or ten. And on her return, pale enough, she would laugh and +say she had had her dinner and would go to bed. But she had not had her +dinner. She was simply too tired and nervously exasperated to eat. And +she would lie in bed and tremble and cry quietly from fatigue. She did +not know that her parents knew these details. The cook, her confidante, +had told them, much later. And Mr. Prohack had decreed that Sissie must +never know that they knew. She had stuck to the task during a whole +winter, skidding on glassy asphalt, slimy wood, and slithery stone-setts +in the East End, and had met with but one accident, a minor affair. The +experience seemed to have had no permanent effect on her, but it had had +a permanent effect on her father's attitude towards her,--her mother had +always strongly objected to what she called the "episode," had shown +only relief when it concluded, and had awarded no merit for it. + +"Can you definitely promise me fifty pounds, dad?" Sissie asked quietly. + +Mr. Prohack made no articulate answer. His reply was to take out his +cheque-book and his fountain-pen and fill in a cheque to _Miss Sissie +Prohack or order_. He saw no just reason for differentiating between +the sexes in his offspring. He had given a cheque to Charlie; he gave +one to Sissie. + +"Then you aren't absolutely stone-broke," said Sissie, smiling. + +"I should not so describe myself." + +"It's just like mother," she murmured, the smile fading. + +Mr. Prohack raised a sternly deprecating hand. "Enough." + +"But don't you want to know what I want the money for?" Sissie demanded. + +"No!... Ha-ha!" + +"Then I shall tell you. The fact is I must tell you." + + + * * * * * + +III + + +"I've decided to teach dancing," said Sissie, beginning again nervously, +as her father kept a notable silence. + +"I thought you weren't so very keen on dancing." + +"I'm not; but perhaps that's because I don't care much for the new +fashion of dancing a whole evening with the same man. Still the point is +that I'm a very fine dancer. Even Charlie will tell you that." + +"But I thought that all the principal streets in London were full of +dancing academies at the present time, chiefly for the instruction of +aged gentlemen." + +"I don't know anything about that," Sissie replied seriously. "What I do +know is that now I can find a hundred pounds, I have a ripping chance of +taking over a studio--at least part of one; and it's got quite a big +connection already,--in fact pupils are being turned away." + +"And this is all you can think of!" protested Mr. Prohack with +melancholy. "We are living on the edge of a volcano--the country is, I +mean--and your share in the country's work is to teach the citizens to +dance!" + +"Well," said Sissie. "They'll dance anyhow, and so they may as well +learn to dance properly. And what else can I do? Have you had me taught +to do anything else? You and mother have brought me up to be perfectly +useless except as the wife of a rich man. That's what you've done, and +you can't deny it." + +"Once," said Mr. Prohack. "You very nobly drove a van." + +"Yes, I did. But no thanks to you and mother. Why, I had even to learn +to drive in secret, lest you should stop me! And I can tell you one +thing--if I was to start driving a van now I should probably get mobbed +in the streets. All the men have a horrid grudge against us girls who +did their work in the war. If we want to get a job in these days we +jolly well have to conceal the fact that we were in the W.A.A.C. or in +anything at all during the war. They won't look at us if they find out +that. Our reward! However, I don't want to drive a van. I want to teach +dancing. It's not so dirty and it pays better. And if people feel like +dancing, why shouldn't they dance? Come now, dad, be reasonable." + +"That's asking a lot from any human being, and especially from a +parent." + +"Well, have you got any argument against what I say?" + +"I prefer not to argue." + +"That's because you can't." + +"It is. It is. But what is this wonderful chance you've got?" + +"It's that studio where Charlie and I went last night, at Putney." + +"At _Putney_?" + +"Well, why not Putney? They have a gala night every other week, you +know. It belongs to Viola Ridle. Viola's going to get married and live +in Edinburgh, and she's selling it. And Eliza asked me if I'd join her +in taking it over. Eliza telephoned me about it to-night, and so I +rushed across the Park to see her. But Viola's asking a hundred pounds +premium and a hundred for the fittings, and very cheap it is too. In +fact Viola's a fool, _I_ think, but then she's fond of Eliza." + +"Now, Eliza? Is that Eliza Brating, or am I getting mixed up?" + +"Yes, it's Eliza Brating." + +"Ah!" + +"You needn't be so stuffy, dad, because her father's only a +second-division clerk at the Treasury." + +"Oh, I'm not. It was only this morning that I was saying to Mr. Hunter +that we must always remember that second-division clerks are also God's +creatures." + +"Father, you're disgusting." + +"Don't say that, my child. At my age one needs encouragement, not abuse. +And I'm glad to be able to tell you that there is no longer any +necessity either for you to earn money or to pinch and scrape. +Satisfactory arrangements have been made...." + +"Really? Well, that's splendid. But of course it won't make any +difference to me. There may be no necessity so far as you're concerned. +But there's my inward necessity. I've got to be independent. It wouldn't +make any difference if you had an income of ten thousand a year." + +Mr. Prohack blenched guiltily. + +"Er--er--what was I going to say? Oh, yes,--where's this Eliza of yours +got her hundred pounds from?" + +"I don't know. It's no business of mine." + +"But do you insist--shall you--insist on introductions from your +pupils?" + +"Father, how you do chop about! No, naturally we shan't insist on +introductions." + +"Then any man can come for lessons?" + +"Certainly. Provided he wears evening-dress on gala nights, and pays the +fees and behaves properly. Viola says some of them prefer afternoon +lessons because they haven't got any evening-dress." + +"If I were you I shouldn't rush at it," said Mr. Prohack. + +"But we must rush at it--or lose it. And I've no intention of losing it. +Viola has to make her arrangements at once." + +"I wonder what your mother will say when you ask her." + +"I shan't ask her. I shall tell her. Nobody can decide this thing for +me. I have to decide it for myself, and I've decided it. As for what +mother says--" Sissie frowned and then smiled, "that's your affair." + +"My affair!" Mr. Prohack exclaimed in real alarm. "What on earth do you +mean?" + +"Well, you and she are so thick together. You're got to live with her. I +haven't got to live with her." + +"I ask you, what on earth _do_ you mean?" + +"But surely you've understood, father, that I shall have to live at the +studio. Somebody has to be on the spot, and there are two bedrooms. But +of course you'll be able to put all that right with mother, dad. You'll +do it for your own sake; but a bit for mine, too." She giggled +nervously, ran round the table and kissed her parent. "I'm frightfully +obliged for the fifty pounds," she said. "You and the mater will be +fearfully happy together soon if Charlie doesn't come back. Ta-ta! I +must be off now." + +"Where?" + +"To Eliza's of course. We shall probably go straight down to Putney +together and see Viola and fix everything up. I know Viola's had at +least one other good offer. I may sleep at the studio. If not, at +Eliza's. Anyhow it will be too late for me to come back here." + +"I absolutely forbid you to go off like this." + +"Yes, do, father. You forbid for all you're worth if it gives you any +pleasure. But it won't be much use unless you can carry me upstairs and +lock me in my room. Oh! Father, you are a great pretender. You know +perfectly well you're delighted with me." + +"Indeed I'm not! I suppose you'll have the decency to see your mother +before you go?" + +"What! And wake her! You said she wasn't to be disturbed 'on any +account.'" + +"I deny that I said 'on any account.'" + +"I shouldn't dream of disturbing her. And you'll tell her so much better +than I could. You can do what you like with her." + + + + +IV + + +"Where's my dessert?" demanded Mrs. Prohack, anxiously and resentfully, +when her husband at length reached the bedroom. "I'm dying of hunger, +and I've got a real headache now. Oh! Arthur how absurd all this is! At +least it would be if I wasn't so hungry." + +"Sissie ate all the dessert," Mr. Prohack answered timidly. He no longer +felt triumphant, careless and free. Indeed for some minutes he had +practically forgotten that he had inherited ten thousand a year. "The +child ate it every bit, so I couldn't bring any. Shall I ring for +something else?" + +"And why," Mrs. Prohack continued, "why have you been so long? And +what's all this business of taxis rushing up to the door all the +evening?" + +"Marian," said Mr. Prohack, ignoring her gross exaggeration of the truth +as to the taxis. "I'd better tell you at once. Charlie's gone to Glasgow +on his own business and Sissie's just run down to Viola Ridle's studio +about a new scheme of some kind that she's thinking of. For the moment +we're alone in the world." + +"It's always the same," she remarked with indignation, when with forced +facetiousness he had given her an extremely imperfect and bowdlerized +account of his evening. "It's always the same. As soon as I'm laid up in +bed, everything goes wrong. My poor boy, I cannot imagine what you've +been doing. I suppose I'm very silly, but I _can't_ understand it." + +Nor could Mr. Prohack himself, now that he was in the sane conjugal +atmosphere of the bedroom. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE SYMPATHETIC QUACK + +I + + +The next morning Mr. Prohack had a unique shock, for he was awakened by +his wife coming into the bedroom. She held a big piece of cake in her +hand. Never before had Mrs. Prohack been known to rise earlier than her +husband. Also, the hour was eight-twenty, whereas never before had Mr. +Prohack been known, on a working-day, to rise later than eight o'clock. +He realised with horror that it would be necessary for him to hurry. +Still, he did not jump up. He was not a brilliant sleeper, and he had +had a bad night, which had only begun to be good at the time when as a +rule he woke finally for the day. He did not feel very well, despite the +fine sensation of riches which rushed reassuringly into his arms the +moment consciousness returned. + +"Arthur," said Mrs. Prohack, who was in her Chinese robe, "do you know +that girl hasn't been home all night. Her bed hasn't been slept in!" + +"Neither has mine," answered Mr. Prohack. "What girl?" + +"Sissie, of course." + +"Ah! Sissie!" murmured Mr. Prohack as if he had temporarily forgotten +that such a girl existed. "Didn't I tell you last night she mightn't be +back?" + +"No, you didn't! And you know very well you didn't!" + +"Honestly," said Mr. Prohack (meaning "dishonestly" as most people do in +similar circumstances), "I thought I did." + +"Do you suppose I should have slept one wink if I'd thought Sissie +wasn't coming _home_?" + +"Yes, I do. The death of Nelson wouldn't keep you awake. And now either +I shall be late at the office, or else I shall go without my breakfast. +I think you might have wakened me." + +Mrs. Prohack, munching the cake despite all her anxieties, replied in a +peculiar tone: + +"What does it matter if you are late for the office?" + +Mr. Prohack reflected that all women were alike in a lack of conscience +where the public welfare was concerned. He was rich: therefore he was +entitled to neglect his duty to the nation! A pleasing argument! Mr. +Prohack sat up, and Mrs. Prohack had a full view of his face for the +first time that morning. + +"Arthur," she exclaimed, absolutely and in an instant forgetting both +cake and daughter. "You're ill!" + +He thought how agreeable it was to have a wife who was so marvellously +absorbed in his being. There was something uncanny, something terrible, +in it. + +"Oh, no I'm not," he said. "I swear I'm not. I'm very tired, but I'm not +ill. Get out of my way." + +"But your face is as yellow as a cheese," protested Eve, frightened. + +"It may be," said Mr. Prohack. + +"You won't get up." + +"I shall get up." + +Eve snatched her hand-mirror from the dressing-table, and gave it to him +with a menacing gesture. He admitted to himself that the appearance of +his face was perhaps rather alarming at first sight; but really he did +not feel ill; he only felt tired. + +"It's nothing. Liver." He made a move to emerge from the bed. "Exercise +is all I want." + +He saw Eve's lips tremble; he saw tears hanging in her eyes; these +phenomena induced in him the sensation of having somehow committed a +solecism or a murder. He withdrew the move to emerge. She was hurt and +desperate. He at once knew himself defeated. He thought how annoying it +was to have a woman in the house who was so marvellously absorbed in his +being. She was wrong; but her unreasoning desperation triumphed over his +calm sagacity. + +"Telephone for Dr. Veiga," said Mrs. Prohack to Machin, for whom she had +rung. "V-e-i-g-a. Bruton Street. He's in the book. And ask him to come +along as soon as he can to see Mr. Prohack." + +Now Mr. Prohack had heard of, but never seen, Dr. Veiga. He had more +than once listened to the Portuguese name on Eve's lips, and the man had +been mentioned more than once at the club. Mr. Prohack knew that he was, +if not a foreigner, of foreign descent, and hence he did not like him. +Mr. Prohack took kindly to foreign singers and cooks, but not to foreign +doctors. Moreover he had doubts about the fellow's professional +qualifications. Therefore he strongly resented his wife's most singular +and startling order to Machin, and as soon as Machin had gone he +expressed himself: + +"Anyway," he said curtly, after several exchanges, "I shall see my own +doctor, if I see any doctor at all--which is doubtful." + +Eve's response was to kiss her husband--a sisterly rather than a wifely +kiss. And she said, in a sweet, noble voice: + +"It's I that want Dr. Veiga's opinion about you, and I must insist on +having it. And what's more, you know I've never cared for your friend +Dr. Plott. He never seems to be interested. He scarcely listens to what +you have to say. He scarcely examines you. He just makes you think your +health is of no importance at all, and it doesn't really matter whether +you're ill or well, and that you may get better or you mayn't, and that +he'll humour you by sending you a bottle of something." + +"Stuff!" said Mr. Prohack. "He's a first-rate fellow. No infernal +nonsense about _him!_ And what do _you_ know about Veiga? I should like +to be informed." + +"I met him at Mrs. Cunliff's. He cured her of cancer." + +"You told me Mrs. Cunliff hadn't got cancer at all." + +"Well, it was Dr. Veiga who found out she hadn't, and stopped the +operation just in time. She says he saved her life, and she's quite +right. He's wonderful." + +Mrs. Prohack was now sitting on the bed. She gazed at her husband's +features with acute apprehension and yet with persuasive grace. + +"Oh! Arthur!" she murmured, "you are a worry to me!" + +Mr. Prohack, not being an ordinary Englishman, knew himself beaten--for +the second time that morning. He dared not trifle with his wife in her +earnest, lofty mood. + +"I bet you Veiga won't come," said Mr. Prohack. + +"He will come," said Mrs. Prohack blandly. + +"How do you know?" + +"Because he told me he'd come at once if ever I asked him. He's a +perfect dear." + +"Oh! I know the sort!" Mr. Prohack said sarcastically. "And you'll see +the fee he'll charge!" + +"When it's a question of health money doesn't matter." + +"It doesn't matter when you've got the money. You'd never have dreamed +of having Veiga this time yesterday. You wouldn't even have sent for old +Plott." + +Mrs. Prohack merely kissed her husband again, with a kind of ineffable +resignation. Then Machin came in with her breakfast, and said that Dr. +Veiga would be round shortly, and was told to telephone to the Treasury +that her master was ill in bed. + +"And what about my breakfast?" the victim enquired with irony. "Give me +some of your egg." + +"No, dearest, egg is the very last thing you should have with that +colour." + +"Well, if you'd like to know, I don't want any breakfast. Couldn't eat +any." + +"There you are!" Mrs. Prohack exclaimed triumphantly. "And yet you swear +you aren't ill! That just shows.... It will be quite the best thing for +you not to take anything until Dr. Veiga's been." + +Mr. Prohack, helpless, examined the ceiling, and decided to go to the +office in the afternoon. He tried to be unhappy but couldn't. Eve was +too funny, too delicious, too exquisitely and ingenuously "firm," too +blissful in having him at her mercy, for him to be unhappy.... To say +nothing of the hundred thousand pounds! And he knew that Eve also was +secretly revelling in the hundred thousand pounds. Dr. Veiga was her +first bite at it. + + + * * * * * + +II + + +Considering that he was well on the way to being a fashionable +physician, Dr. Veiga arrived with surprising promptitude. Mr. Prohack +wondered what hold Eve had upon him and how she had acquired it. He was +prejudiced against the fellow before he came into the bedroom, simply +because Eve, on hearing the noise of a car and a doorbell, had hurried +downstairs, and a considerable interval had elapsed between the doctor's +entrance into the house and his appearance at the bedside. Mr. Prohack +guessed easily that those two had been plotting against him. Strange how +Eve could be passionately loyal and basely deceitful simultaneously! The +two-faced creature led the doctor forward with a candid smile that +partook equally of the smile of a guardian angel and the smile of a +cherub. She was an unparalleled comedian. + +Dr. Veiga was fattish and rather shabby; about sixty years of age. He +spoke perfectly correct English with a marked foreign accent. His +demeanour was bland, slightly familiar, philosophical and sympathetic. +Dr. Plott's eyes would have said: "This is my thirteenth visit this +morning, and I've eighteen more to do, and it's all very tedious. Why +_do_ you people let yourselves get ill--if it's a fact that you really +are ill? I don't think you are, but I'll see." Dr. Veiga's eyes said: +"How interesting your case is! You've had no luck this time. We must +make the best of things; but also we must face the truth. God knows I +don't want to boast, but I expect I can put you right, with the help of +your own strong commonsense." + +Mr. Prohack, a connoisseur in human nature, noted the significances of +the Veiga glance, but he suspected that there might also be something +histrionic in it. Dr. Veiga examined heart, pulse, tongue. He tapped the +torso. He asked many questions. Then he took an instrument out of a +leather case which he carried, and fastened a strap round Mr. Prohack's +forearm and attached it to the instrument, and presently Mr. Prohack +could feel the strong pulsations of the blood current in his arm. + +"Dear, dear!" said Dr. Veiga. "175. Blood pressure too high. Much too +high! Must get that down." + +Eve looked as though the end of the world had been announced, and even +Mr. Prohack had qualms. Ten minutes earlier Mr. Prohack had been a +strong, healthy man a trifle unwell in a bedroom. He was suddenly +transformed into a patient in a nursing-home. + +"A little catarrh," said Dr. Veiga. + +"I've got no catarrh," said Mr. Prohack, with conviction. + +"Yes, yes. Catarrh of the stomach. Probably had it for years. The +duodenum is obstructed. A little accident that easily happens." + +He addressed himself as it were privately to Mrs. Prohack. "The duodenum +is no thicker than that." He indicated the pencil with which he was +already writing in a pocket-book. "We'll get it right." + +"What is the duodenum?" Mr. Prohack wanted to cry out. But he was too +ashamed to ask. It was hardly conceivable that he, so wise, so prudent, +had allowed over forty years to pass in total ignorance of this +important item of his own body. He felt himself to be a bag full of +disconcerting and dangerous mysteries. Or he might have expressed it +that he had been smoking in criminal nonchalance for nearly half a +century on the top of a powder magazine. He was deeply impressed by the +rapidity and assurance of the doctor's diagnosis. It was wonderful that +the queer fellow could in a few minutes single out an obscure organ no +bigger than a pencil and say: "There is the ill." The fellow might be a +quack, but sometimes quacks were men of genius. His shame and his alarm +quickly vanished under the doctor's reassuring and bland manner. So much +so that when Dr. Veiga had written out a prescription, Mr. Prohack said +lightly: + +"I suppose I can get up, though." + +To which Dr. Veiga amiably replied: + +"I shall leave that to you. Perhaps if I tell you you'll be lucky if +you don't have jaundice...! But I think you _will_ be lucky. I'll try to +look in again this afternoon." + +These last words staggered both Mr. and Mrs. Prohack. + +"I've been expecting this for years. I knew it would come." Mrs. Prohack +breathed tragically. + +And even Mr. Prohack reflected aghast: + +"My God! Doctor calling twice a day!" + +True, "duodenum" was a terrible word. + +Mrs. Prohack gazed at Dr. Veiga as at a high priest, and waited to be +vouchsafed a further message. + +"Anyhow, if I find it impossible to call, I'll telephone in any case," +said Dr. Veiga. + +Some slight solace in this! + +Mrs. Prohack, like an acolyte, personally attended the high priest as +far as the street, listening with acute attention to his +recommendations. When she returned she had put on a carefully bright +face. Evidently she had decided, or had been told, that cheerfulness was +essential to ward off jaundice. + +"Now that's what I _call_ a doctor," said she. "To think of your friend +Plott...! I've telephoned for a messenger boy to go to the chemist's." + +"You're at liberty to call the man a doctor," answered Mr. Prohack. "And +I'm at liberty to call him a fine character actor." + +"I knew the moment you sat up it was jaundice," said Mrs. Prohack. + +"Well," said Mr. Prohack. "I lay you five to one I don't have jaundice. +Not that you'd ever pay me if you lost." + +Mrs. Prohack said: + +"When I saw you were asleep at after eight o'clock this morning I knew +there must be something serious. I felt it. However, as the doctor says, +if we _take_ it seriously it will soon cease to be serious." + +"He's not a bad phrase-maker," said Mr. Prohack. + +In the late afternoon Dr. Veiga returned like an old and familiar +acquaintance, with his confident air of saying: "We can manage this +affair between us--I am almost sure." Mr. Prohack felt worse; and the +room, lighted by one shaded lamp, had begun to look rather like a real +sick-room. Mr. Prohack, though he mistrusted the foreign accent, the +unprofessional appearance, and the adventurous manner, was positively +glad to see his new doctor, and indeed felt that he had need of succour. + +"Yes," said Dr. Veiga, after investigation. "My opinion is that you'll +escape jaundice. In four or five days you ought to be as well as you +were before the attack. I don't say _how_ well you were before." + +Mr. Prohack instantly felt better. + +"It will be very awkward if I can't get back to the office early next +week," said he. + +"I'm sure it will," Dr. Veiga agreed. "And it might be still more +awkward if you went back to the office early next week, and then never +went any more." + +"What do you mean?" + +Dr. Veiga smiled understandingly at Mrs. Prohack, as though he and she +were the only grown-up persons in the room. + +"Look here," he addressed the patient. "I see I shall have to charge you +a fee for telling you what you know as well as I do. The fact is I get +my living by doing that. How old are you?" + +"Forty-six." + +"Every year of the war counts double. So you're over fifty. A difficult +age. You can run an engine ten hours a day for fifty years. But it's +worn; it's second-hand. And if you keep on running it ten hours a day +you'll soon discover how worn it is. But you can run it five hours a day +for another twenty years with reasonable safety and efficiency. That's +what I wanted to tell you. You aren't the man you were, Mr. Prohack. +You've lost the trick of getting rid of your waste products. You say you +feel tired. Why do you feel tired? Being tired simply means being +clogged. The moment you feel tired your waste products are beginning to +pile up. Look at those finger joints! Waste products! Friction! Why +don't you sleep well? You say the more tired you are the worse you +sleep: and you seem surprised. But you're only surprised because you +haven't thought it out. Morpheus himself wouldn't sleep if his body was +a mass of friction-producing waste products from top to toe. You aren't +a body and soul, Mr. Prohack. You're an engine--I wish you'd remember +that and treat yourself like one. The moment you feel tired, stop the +engine. If you don't, it'll stop itself. It pretty nearly stopped +to-day. You need lubrication too. The best lubricant is a tumbler of hot +water four times a day. And don't take coffee, or any salt except what +your cook puts into the dishes. Don't try to be cleverer than nature. +Don't think the clock is standing still. It isn't. If you treat yourself +as well as you treat your watch, you'll bury me. If you don't, I shall +bury you. All that I've told you I know by heart, because I'm saying it +to men of your age every day of my life." + +Mr. Prohack felt like a reprimanded schoolboy. He feared the wrath to +come. + +"Don't you think my husband ought to take a long holiday?" Eve put in. + +"Well, _of course_ he ought," said Dr. Veiga, opening both mouth and +eyes in protest against such a silly question. + +"Six months?" + +"At least." + +"Where ought he to go?" + +"Doesn't matter. Portugal, the Riviera, Switzerland. But it's not the +season yet for any of these places. If he wants to keep on pleasant +terms with nature he'll get out his car and motor about his own country +for a month or two. After that he might go to the Continent. But of +course he won't. I know these official gentlemen. If you ask them to +disturb their routine they'll die first. They really would sooner die. +Very natural of course. Routine is their drug." + +"My husband will take six months holiday," said Eve quietly. "I suppose +you could give the proper certificate? You see in these Government +departments...." + +"I'll give you the certificate to-morrow." + +Mr. Prohack was pretending to be asleep, or at least to be too fatigued +and indifferent to take notice of this remarkable conversation. But as +soon as Dr. Veiga had blandly departed under the escort of Eve, he +slipped out of bed and cautiously padded to the landing where there was +a bookcase. + +"Duodenum. Duodenum. Must be something to do with twelve." Then he found +a dictionary and brought it back into the bedroom and consulted it. "So +it's twelve inches long, is it?" he murmured. He had just time to plunge +into bed and pitch the dictionary under the bed before his wife +returned. + + + * * * * * + +III + + +She was bending over him. + +"Darling!" + +He opened his deceiving eyes. Her face was within a foot of his. + +"How do you feel now?" + +"I feel," said he, "that this is the darnedest swindle that ever was. +If I hadn't come into a fortune I should have been back at the office +the day after to-morrow. In about eight hours, with the help of that +Portuguese mountebank, you've changed me from a sane normal man into a +blooming valetudinarian who must run all over the earth in search of +health. I've got to 'winter' somewhere, have I? You'll see. It's +absolutely incredible. It's more like Maskelyne and Cook's than anything +I ever came across." He yawned. He knew that it was the disturbed +duodenum that caused him to yawn, and that also gave him a dry mouth and +a peculiar taste therein. + +"Yes, darling," Eve smiled above him the smile of her impenetrable +angelicism. "Yes, darling. You're better." + +The worst was that she had beaten him on the primary point. He had +asserted that he was not ill. She had asserted that he was. She had been +right; he wrong. He could not deny, even to himself, that he was ill. +Not gravely, only somewhat. But supposing that he was gravely ill! +Supposing that old Plott would agree with all that Veiga had said! It +was conceivable. Misgivings shot through him. + +And Eve had him at her sweet mercy. He was helpless. She was easily the +stronger. He perceived then, what many a husband dies without having +perceived, that his wife had a genuine individual existence and volition +of her own, that she was more than his complement, his companion, the +mother of his children. + +She lowered her head further and gave him a long, fresh, damp kiss. They +were very intimate, with an intimacy that her enigmatic quality could +not impair. He was annoyed, aggrieved, rebellious, but extremely happy +in a weak sort of way. He hated and loved her, he despised and adored +her, he reprehended and admired her--all at once. What specially +satisfied him was that he had her to himself. The always-impinging +children were not there. He liked this novel solitude of two. + +"Darling, where is Charlie staying in Glasgow?" + +"Why?" + +"I want to write to him." + +"Post's gone, my poor child." + +"Then I shall telegraph." + +"What about?" + +"Never mind." + +"I shan't tell you the address unless you promise to show me the +telegram. I intend to be master in my own house even if I am dying." + +Thus he saw the telegram, which ran: "Father ill in bed what is the +best motor car to buy. Love. Mother." The telegram astounded Mr. +Prohack. + +"Have you taken leave of your senses?" he cried. Then he laughed. What +else was there to do? What else but the philosopher's laugh was adequate +to the occasion? + +While Eve with her own unrivalled hand was preparing the bedroom for the +night, Machin came in with a telegram. Without being asked to do so Eve +showed it to the sufferer: "Tell him to buck up. Eagle six cylinder. +Everything fine here. Charles." + +"I think he might have sent his love," said Eve. + +Mr. Prohack no longer attempted to fight against the situation, which +was like a net winding itself round him. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +SISSIE'S BUSINESS + + +I + + +One evening, ten days later, Mr. Prohack slipped out of his own house as +stealthily as a thief might have slipped into it. He was cured +provisionally. The unseen, unfelt, sinister duodenum no longer +mysteriously deranged his whole engine. Only a continual sensation of +slight fatigue indicated all the time that he was not cleverer than +nature and that he was not victoriously disposing of his waste products. +But he could walk mildly about; his zest for smoking had in part +returned; and to any uninstructed observer he bore a close resemblance +to a healthy man. + +Four matters worried him, of which three may be mentioned immediately. +He could not go to the Treasury. His colleague Hunter had amiably called +the day after his seizure, and Mrs. Prohack had got hold of Hunter. Her +influence over sane and well-balanced males was really extraordinary. +Mr. Prohack had remained in perfect ignorance of the machinations of +these two for eight days, at the end of which period he received by post +an official document informing him that My Lords of the Treasury had +granted him six months' leave of absence for reasons of ill-health. Dr. +Veiga had furnished the certificate unknown to the patient. The quick +despatch of the affair showed with what celerity a government department +can function when it is actuated from the inside. The leave of absence +for reasons of ill-health of course prevented Mr. Prohack from appearing +at his office. How could he with decency appear at his office seemingly +vigorous when it had been officially decided that he was too ill to +work? And Mr. Prohack desired greatly to visit the Treasury. The habit +of a life-time had been broken in a moment, and since Mr. Prohack was +the creature of that habit he suffered accordingly. He had been +suffering for two days. This was the first matter that worried Mr. +Prohack. + +The second matter had to do with his clubs. He was cut off from his +clubs. Partly for the same reason as that which cut him off from the +Treasury--for both his clubs were full of Civil Servants--and partly +because he was still somehow sensitive concerning the fact of his +inheritance. He would have had a similar objection to entering his clubs +in Highland kilt. The explanation was obvious. He hated to be +conspicuous. His inheritance was already (through Mr. Softly Bishop) the +talk of certain official and club circles, and Mr. Prohack apprehended +that every eye would be curiously upon him if he should set foot in a +club. He could not bear that, and he could not bear the questions and +the pleasantries. One day he would have to bear them--but not yet. + +The third matter that worried him was that he could not, even in secret, +consult his own doctor. How could he go to old Plott and say: "Plott, +old man, I've been ill and my wife insisted upon having another doctor, +but I've come to ask you to tell me whether or not the other doctor's +right?" The thing was impossible. Yet he badly wanted to verify Veiga by +Plott. He still mistrusted Veiga, though his mistrust lessened daily, +despite his wish to see it increase. + +Mrs. Prohack had benevolently suggested that he should run down to his +club, but on no account for a meal--merely "for a change." He had +declined, without giving the reason, and she had admitted that perhaps +he was right. + +He attributed all the worries to his wife. + +"I pay a fine price for that woman," he thought as he left the house, "a +rare fine price!" But as for her price, he never haggled over it. She, +just as she existed in her awful imperfection, was his first necessary +of life. She had gone out after dinner to see an acquaintance about a +house-maid (for already she was reorganising the household on a more +specious scale); she was a mile off at least; but she would have +disapproved of him breaking loose into his clubs at night, and so the +Terror of the departments stole forth, instead of walking forth, +intimidated by that moral influence which she left behind her. +Undoubtedly since the revolt of the duodenum her grip of him had +sensibly tightened. + +Not that Mr. Prohack was really going to a club. He had deceitfully told +himself that he _might_ stroll down to his principal club, for the sake +of exercise (his close friends among the members were lunchers not +diners), but the central self within himself was aware that no club +would see him that evening. + +A taxi approached in the darkness; he knew by its pace that it was +empty. He told the driver to drive to Putney. In the old days of eleven +days ago he would not have dared to tell a taxi-driver to drive to +Putney, for the fare would have unbalanced his dizzy private weekly +budget; and even now he felt he was going the deuce of a pace. Even now +he would prudently not have taken a taxi had not part of the American +hundred thousand pounds already materialised. Mr. Softly Bishop had been +to see him on the previous day, and in addition to being mysteriously +sympathetic about his co-heir's ill-health had produced seven thousand +pounds of the hundred thousand. A New York representative had cabled +fourteen thousand, not because Mr. Prohack was in a hurry for seven, but +because Mr. Softly Bishop was in a hurry for seven. And Mr. Softly +Bishop had pointed out something which Mr. Prohack, Treasury official, +had not thought of. He had pointed out that Mr. Prohack might begin +immediately to spend just as freely as if the hundred thousand were +actually in hand. + +"You see," said he, "the interest has been accumulating over there ever +since Angmering's death, and it will continue to accumulate until we get +all the capital; and the interest runs up to about a couple of hundred a +week for each of us." + +Now Mr. Prohack had directed the taxi to his daughter's dance studio, +and perhaps it was the intention to do so that had made him steal +ignobly out of the house. For Eve would assuredly have rebelled. A state +of war existed between Eve and her daughter, and Mr. Prohack's +intelligence, as well as his heart, had ranged him on Eve's side. Since +Sissie's departure, the girl had given no sign whatever to her parents. +Mrs. Prohack had expected to see her on the next day after her +defection. But there was no Sissie, and there was no message from +Sissie. Mrs. Prohack bulged with astounding news for Sissie, of her +father's illness and inheritance. But Mrs. Prohack's resentful pride +would not make the first move, and would not allow Mr. Prohack to make +it. They knew, at second-hand through a friend of Viola Ridle's, that +Sissie was regularly active at the studio; also Sissie had had the +effrontery to send a messenger for some of her clothes--without even a +note! The situation was incredible, and waxed daily in incredibility. +Sissie's behaviour could not possibly be excused. + +This was the fourth and the chief matter that worried Mr. Prohack. He +regarded it sardonically as rather a lark; but he was worried to think +of the girl making a fool of herself with her mother. Her mother was +demonstrably in the right. To yield to the chit's appalling +heartlessness would be bad tactics and it would be humiliating. +Nevertheless Mr. Prohack had directed the taxi-driver to the +dance-studio at Putney. On the way it suddenly occurred to him, almost +with a shock, that he was a rich man, secure from material anxieties, +and that therefore he ought to feel light-hearted. He had been losing +sight of this very important fact for quite some time. + + * * * * * + +II + + +The woman in the cubicle near the door was putting a fresh disc on to a +gramophone and winding up the instrument. She was a fat, youngish woman, +in a parlourmaid's cap and apron, and Mr. Prohack had a few days earlier +had a glimpse of her seated in his own hall waiting for a package of +Sissie's clothes. + +"Very sorry, sir," said she, turning her head negligently from the +gramophone and eyeing him seriously. "I'm afraid you can't go in if +you're not in evening dress." Evidently from her firm, polite voice, she +knew just what she was about, did that young woman. She added: "The +rule's very strict on Fridays." + +At the same moment a bell rang once. The woman immediately released the +catch of the gramophone and lowered the needle on to the disc, and Mr. +Prohack heard music, but not from the cubicle. There was a round hole in +the match-board partition, and the trumpet attachment of the gramophone +disappeared beyond the hole. + +"This affair is organised," thought Mr. Prohack, decidedly impressed by +the ingenuity of the musical arrangement and by the promptness of the +orchestral director in obeying the signal of the bell. + +"My name is Prohack," said he. "I'm Miss Prohack's father." + +This important announcement ought to have startled the sangfroid of the +guardian, but it did not. She merely said, with a slight mechanical +smile: + +"As soon as this dance is over, sir, I'll let Miss Prohack know she's +wanted." She did not say: "Sir, a person of your eminence is above +rules. Go right in." + +Two girls in all-enveloping dark cloaks entered behind him. +"Good-evening, Lizzie," one of them greeted the guardian. And Lizzie's +face relaxed into a bright genuine smile. + +"Good-evening, miss. Good-evening, miss." + +The two girls vanished rustlingly through a door over which was hung a +piece of cardboard with the written words: "Ladies' cloakroom." In a few +moments they emerged, white and fluffy apparitions, eager, +self-conscious, and they vanished through another door. Mr. Prohack +judged from their bridling and from their whispers to each other that +they belonged to the class which ministers to the shopping-class. He +admitted that they looked very nice and attractive; but he had the +sensation of having blundered into a queer, hitherto unknown world, and +of astonishment and qualms that his daughter should be a ruler in that +world. + +Lizzie stood up and peeped through a little square window in the +match-boarding. As soon as she had finished peeping Mr. Prohack took +liberty to peep also, and the dance-studio was revealed to him. Somehow +he could scarcely believe that it was not a hallucination, and that he +was really in Putney, and that his own sober house in which Sissie had +been reared still existed not many miles off. + +For Mr. Prohack, not continuously but at intervals, possessed a +disturbing faculty that compelled him to see the phenomena of human life +as they actually were, and to disregard entirely the mere names of +things,--which mere names by the magic power of mere names usually +suffice to satisfy the curiosity of most people and to allay their +misgivings if any. Mr. Prohack now saw (when he looked downwards) a +revolving disc which was grating against a stationary needle and thereby +producing unpleasant rasping sounds. But it was also producing a quite +different order of sounds. He did not in the least understand, and he +did not suppose that anybody in the dance-studio understood, the +delicate secret mechanism by which these other sounds were produced. All +he knew was that by means of the trumpet attachment they were +transmitted through the wooden partition and let loose into the larger +air of the studio, where the waves of them had a singular effect on the +brains of certain bright young women and sombre young and middle-aged +men who were arranged in clasped couples: with the result that the +brains of the women and men sent orders to their legs, arms, eyes, and +they shifted to and fro in rhythmical movements. Each woman placed +herself very close--breast against breast--to each man, yielding her +volition absolutely to his, and (if the man was the taller) often gazing +up into his face with an ecstatic expression of pleasure and +acquiescence. The physical relations between the units of each couple +would have caused censorious comment had the couple been alone or +standing still; but the movement and the association of couples seemed +mysteriously to lift the whole operation above criticism and to endow it +with a perfect propriety. The motion of the couples, and their manner of +moving, over the earth's surface were extremely monotonous; some couples +indeed only walked stiffly to and fro; on the other hand a few exhibited +variety, lightness and grace, in manoeuvres which involved a high degree +of mutual trust and comprehension. While only some of the faces were +ecstatic, all were rapt. The ordinary world was shut out of this room, +whose inhabitants had apparently abandoned themselves with all their +souls to the performance of a complicated and solemn rite. + +Odd as the spectacle was, Mr. Prohack enjoyed it. He enjoyed the youth +and the prettiness and the litheness of the brightly-dressed girls and +the stern masculinity of the men, and he enjoyed the thought that both +girls and men had had the wit to escape from the ordinary world into +this fantastic environment created out of four walls, a few Chinese +lanterns, some rouge, some stuffs, some spangles, friction between two +pieces of metal, and the profoundest instinct of nature. Beyond +everything he enjoyed the sight of the lithest and most elegant of the +girls, whom he knew to be Eliza Brating and who was dancing with a +partner whose skill obviously needed no lessons. He would have liked to +see his daughter Sissie in Eliza's place, but Sissie was playing the +man's role to a stout and nearly middle-aged lady, whose chief talent +for the rite appeared to be an iron determination. + +Mr. 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. + +"Can't you understand," she objected firmly, "that this is my business +dress, just as much as a black frock and high collar would be in an +office?" + +He gave a short, gentle laugh. + +"I don't know what you're laughing at, dad," she reproached him, not +unkindly. "Anyhow, I'm glad some one's come at last. I was beginning to +think that my home had forgotten all about me. Even when I sent up for +some clothes no message came back." + +The life-long experience of Mr. Prohack had been that important and +unusual interviews rarely corresponded with the anticipation of them, +and the present instance most sharply confirmed his experience. He had +expected to be forgiving an apologetic daughter, but the reality was +that he found himself in the dock. He hesitated for words, and Sissie +went on: + +"Here have I been working myself to death reorganising this place after +Viola went--and I can tell you it needed reorganising! Haven't had a +minute in the mornings, and of course there are the lessons afternoon +and evening. And no one's been down to see how I was getting on, or even +written. I do think it's a bit steep. Mother might have known that if I +_had_ had any spare time I should have run up." + +"I've been rather queer," he excused himself and the family. "And your +mother's been looking after me, and of course you know Charlie's still +in Glasgow." + +"I don't know anything," she corrected him. "But you needn't tell me +that if you've been unwell mother's been looking after you. Does she +ever do anything else? Are you better? What was it? You _look_ all +right." + +"Oh! General derangement. I haven't been to the office since you +decamped." He did not feel equal to telling her that he would not be +returning to the office for months. She had said that he looked all +right, and her quite honest if hasty verdict on his appearance gave him +a sense of guilt, and also renewed suspicions of Dr. Veiga. + +"Not been to the office!" The statement justly amazed the girl, almost +shocked her. But she went on in a fresh, satirical accent recalling Mr. +Prohack's own: "You _must_ have been upset! But of course you're highly +nervous, dad, and I expect the excitement of the news of your fortune +was too much for you. I know exactly how you get when anything unusual +happens." + +She had heard of the inheritance! + +"I was going to tell you about that little affair," he said awkwardly. +"So you knew! Who told you?" + +"Nobody in my family at any rate," she answered. "I heard of it from an +outsider, and of course from sheer pride I had to pretend that I knew +all about it. And what's more, father, you knew when you gave me that +fifty pounds, only you wouldn't let on. Don't deny it.... Naturally I'm +glad about it, very glad. And yet I'm not. I really rather regret it for +you and mother. You'll never be as happy again. Riches will spoil my +poor darling mother." + +"That remains to be seen, Miss Worldly Wisemiss," he retorted with +unconvincing lightness. He was disturbed, and he was impressed, by her +indifference to the fortune. It appeared not to concern or to interest +her. She spoke not merely as one who objected to unearned wealth but as +one to whom the annals of the Prohack family were henceforth a matter of +minor importance. It was very strange, and Mr. Prohack had to fight +against a feeling of intimidation. The girl whom he had cherished for +over twenty years and whom he thought he knew to the core, was +absolutely astounding him by the revelation of her individuality. He +didn't know her. He was not her father. He was helpless before her. + +"How are things here?" he demanded, amiably inquisitive, as an +acquaintance. + +"Excellent," said she. "Jolly hard work, though." + +"Yes, I should imagine so. Teaching men dancing! By Jove!" + +"There's not so much difficulty about teaching men. The difficulty's +with the women. Father, they're awful. You can't imagine their +stupidity." + +Lizzie glanced into the room. She simply glanced, and Sissie returned +the glance. + +"You'll have to excuse me a bit, father," said Sissie. "I'll come back +as quick as I can. Don't go." She departed hurriedly. + +"I'd better get out of this anyhow," thought Mr. Prohack, surveying the +ladies' cloakroom. "If one of 'em came in I should have to explain my +unexplainable presence in this sacred grot." + + * * * * * + + + + +III + + +Having received no suggestion from his daughter as to how he should +dispose of himself while awaiting her leisure, Mr. Prohack made his way +back to the guardian's cubicle. And there he discovered a chubby and +intentionally-young man in the act of gazing through the small window +into the studio exactly as he himself had been gazing a few minutes +earlier. + +"Hel_lo_, Prohack!" exclaimed the chubby and intentionally-young man, +with the utmost geniality and calmness. + +"How d'ye do?" responded Mr. Prohack with just as much calmness and +perhaps ten per cent less geniality. Mr. Prohack was a peculiar fellow, +and that on this occasion he gave rather less geniality than he received +was due to the fact that he had never before spoken to the cupid in his +life and that he was wondering whether membership of the same club +entirely justified so informal a mode of address--without an +introduction and outside the club premises. For, like all modest men, +Mr. Prohack had some sort of a notion of his own dignity, a sort of a +notion that occasionally took him quite by surprise. Mr. Prohack did not +even know the surname of his aggressor. He only knew that he never +overheard other men call him anything but "Ozzie." Had not Mr. Prohack +been buried away all his life in the catacombs of the Treasury and thus +cut off from the great world-movement, he would have been fully aware +that Oswald Morfey was a person of importance in the West End of London, +that he was an outstanding phenomenon of the age, that he followed very +closely all the varying curves of the great world-movement, that he was +constantly to be seen on the pavements of Piccadilly, Bond Street, St. +James's Street, Pall Mall and Hammersmith, that he was never absent from +a good first night or a private view of very new or very old pictures or +a distinguished concert or a poetry-reading or a fashionable auction at +Christie's, that he received invitations to dinner for every night in +the week and accepted all those that did not clash with the others, that +in return for these abundant meals he gave about once a month a +tea-party in his trifling Japanese flat in Bruton Street, where the +sandwiches were as thin as the sound of the harpsichord which eighteenth +century ladies played at his request; and that he was in truth what Mr. +Asprey Chown called "social secretary" to Mr. Asprey Chown. + +Mr. Prohack might be excused for his ignorance of this last fact, for +the relation between Asprey Chown and Ozzie was never very clearly +defined--at any rate by Ozzie. He had no doubt learned, from an enforced +acquaintance with the sides of motor-omnibuses, that Mr. Asprey Chown +was a theatre-manager of some activity, but he certainly had not truly +comprehended that Mr. Asprey Chown was head of one of the two great +rival theatrical combines and reputed to be the most accomplished +showman in the Western hemisphere, with a jewelled finger in notable +side-enterprises such as prize-fights, restaurants, and industrial +companies. The knowing ones from whom naught is hidden held that Asprey +Chown had never given a clearer proof of genius than in engaging this +harmless and indefatigable parasite of the West End to be his social +secretary. The knowing ones said further that whereas Ozzie was saving +money, nobody could be sure that Asprey Chown was saving money. The +engagement had a double effect--it at once put Asprey Chown into touch +with everything that could be useful to him for the purposes of special +booming, and it put Ozzie into touch with half the theatrical stars of +London--in an age when a first-rate heroine of revue was worth at least +two duchesses and a Dame in the scale of social values. + +Mr. Oswald Morfey, doubtless in order to balance the modernity of his +taste in the arts, wore a tight black stock and a wide eyeglass ribbon +in the daytime, and in the evening permitted himself to associate a soft +silk shirt with a swallow-tail coat. It was to Mr. Prohack's secondary +(and more exclusive) club that he belonged. Inoffensive though he was, +he had managed innocently to offend Mr. Prohack. "Who is the fellow?" +Mr. Prohack had once asked a friend in the club, and having received no +answer but "Ozzie," Mr. Prohack had added: "He's a perfect ass," and had +given as a reason for this harsh judgment: "Well, I can't stick the way +he walks across the hall." + +In the precincts of the dance-studio Mr. Oswald Morfey said in that +simple, half-lisping tone and with that wide-open child-like glance that +characterised most of his remarks: + +"A very prosperous little affair here!" Having said this, he let his +eyeglass fall into the full silkiness of his shirt-front, and turned and +smiled very amicably and agreeably on Mr. Prohack, who could not help +thinking: "Perhaps after all you aren't such a bad sort of an idiot." + +"Yes," said Mr. Prohack. "Do you often get as far as Putney?" For Mr. +Oswald Morfey, enveloped as he unquestionably was in the invisible aura +of the West End, seemed conspicuously out of place in a dance-studio in +a side-street in Putney, having rather the air of an angelic visitant. + +"Well, now I come to think of it, I don't!" Mr. Morfey answered nearly +all questions as though they were curious, disconcerting questions that +took him by surprise. This mannerism was universally attractive--until +you got tired of it. + +Mr. Prohack was now faintly attracted by it,--so that he said, in a +genuine attempt at good-fellowship: + +"You know I can't for the life of me remember your name. You must excuse +me. My memory for names is not what it was. And I hate to dissemble, +don't you?" + +The announcement was a grave shock to Mr. Oswald Morfey, who imagined +that half the taxi-drivers in London knew him by sight. Nevertheless he +withstood the shock like a little man of the world, and replied with +miraculous and sincere politeness: "I'm sure there's no reason why you +should remember my name." And he vouchsafed his name. + +"Of course! Of course!" exclaimed Mr. Prohack, with a politeness equally +miraculous, for the word "Morfey" had no significance for the benighted +official. "How stupid of me!" + +"By the way," said Mr. Morfey in a lower, confidential tone. "Your Eagle +will be ready to-morrow instead of next week." + +"My Eagle?" + +"Your new car." + +It was Mr. Prohack's turn to be staggered, and to keep his nerve. Not +one word had he heard about the purchase of a car since Charlie's +telegram from Glasgow. He had begun to think that his wife had either +forgotten the necessity of a car or was waiting till his more complete +recovery before troubling him to buy it. And he had taken care to say +nothing about it himself, for he had discovered, upon searching his own +mind, that his interest in motor-cars was not an authentic interest and +that he had no desire at all to go motoring in pursuit of health. And +lo! Eve had been secretly engaged in the purchase of a car for him! Oh! +A remarkable woman, Eve: she would stop at nothing when his health was +in question. Not even at a two thousand pound car. + +"Ah, yes!" said Mr. Prohack, with as much tranquillity as though his +habit was to buy a car once a week or so. "To-morrow, you say? Good!" +Was the fellow then a motor-car tout working on commission? + +"You see," said Ozzie, "my old man owns a controlling interest in the +Eagle Company. That's how I happen to know." + +"I see," murmured Mr. Prohack, speculating wildly in private as to the +identity of Ozzie's old man. + +When Ozzie with a nod and a smile and a re-fixing of his monocle left +the cubicle to enter the studio, he left Mr. Prohack freshly amazed at +the singularities of the world and of women, even the finest women. How +disturbing to come down to Putney in a taxi-cab in order to learn from a +stranger that you have bought a two thousand pound car which is to come +into your possession on the morrow! The dangerousness, the excitingness, +of being rich struck Mr. Prohack very forcibly. + +A few minutes later he beheld a sight which affected him more deeply, +and less pleasantly, than anything else in an evening of thunderclaps. +Through the little window he saw Sissie dancing with Ozzie Morfey. And +although Sissie was not gazing upward ecstatically into Ozzie's +face--she could not because they were of a size--and although her +features had a rather stern, fixed expression, Mr. Prohack knew, from +his knowledge of her, that Sissie was in a secret ecstasy of enjoyment +while dancing with this man. He did not like her ecstasy. Was it +possible that she, so sensible and acute, had failed to perceive that +the fellow was a perfect ass? For in spite of his amiability, a perfect +ass the fellow was. The sight of his Sissie held in the arms of Ozzie +Morfey revolted Mr. Prohack. But he was once again helpless. And the +most sinister suspicions crawled into his mind. Why was the resplendent, +the utterly correct Ozzie dancing in a dancing studio in Putney? +Certainly he was not there to learn dancing. He danced to perfection. +The feet of the partners seemed to be married into a mystic unity of +direction. The performance was entrancing to watch. Could it be possible +that Ozzie was there because Sissie was there? Darker still, could it be +possible that Sissie had taken a share in the studio for any reason +other than a purely commercial reason? + +"He thinks you're a darling," said Sissie to her father afterwards when +he and she and Eliza Brating, alone together in the studio, were +informally consuming buns and milk in the corner where the stove was. + +The talk ran upon dancers, and whether Ozzie Morfey was not one of the +finest dancers in London. Was Sissie's tone quite natural? Mr. Prohack +could not be sure. Eliza Brating said she must go at once in order not +to miss the last tram home. Mr. Prohack, without thinking, said that he +would see her home in his taxi, which had been ruthlessly ticking his +fortune away for much more than an hour. + +"Kiss mother for me," said Sissie, "and tell her that she's a horrid +old thing and I shall come along and give her a piece of my mind one of +these days." And she gave him the kiss for her mother. + +And as she kissed him, Mr. Prohack was very proud of his daughter--so +efficient, so sound, so straight, so graceful. + +"She's all right, anyway," he reflected. And yet she could be ecstatic +in the arms of that perfect ass! And in the taxi: "Fancy me seeing home +this dancing-mistress!" Eliza lived at Brook Green. She was very +elegant, and quite unexceptionable until she opened her mouth. She +related to him how her mother, who had once been a _premier sujet_ in +the Covent Garden ballet, was helpless from sciatica. But she related +this picturesque and pride-causing detail in a manner very insipid, +naive, and even vulgar, (After all there was a difference between First +Division and Second Division in the Civil Service!) She was boring him +terribly before they reached Brook Green. She took leave with a +deportment correct but acquired at an age too late. Still, he had liked +to see her home in the taxi. She was young, and she was an object +pleasing to the eye. He realised that he was not accustomed to the +propinquity of young women. What would his cronies at the Club say to +the escapade?... Odd, excessively odd, that the girl should be Sissie's +partner, in a business enterprise of so odd a character!... The next +thing was to meet Eve after the escapade. Should he keep to the +defensive, or should he lead off with an attack apropos of the Eagle +car? + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +COLLISION + +I + + +After an eventful night Mr. Prohack woke up late to breakfast in bed. +Theoretically he hated breakfast in bed, but in practice he had recently +found that the inconveniences to himself were negligible compared to the +intense and triumphant pleasure which his wife took in seeing him +breakfast in bed, in being fully dressed while he was in pyjamas and +dressing-gown, and in presiding over the meal and over him. Recently +Marian had formed the habit of rising earlier and appearing to be very +busy upon various minute jobs at an hour when, a few weeks previously, +she would scarcely have decided that day had given place to night. Mr. +Prohack, without being able precisely to define it, thought that he +understood the psychology of the change in this unique woman. Under +ordinary circumstances he would have been worried by his sense of +fatigue, but now, as he had nothing whatever to do, he did not much care +whether he was tired or not. Neither the office nor the State would +suffer through his lack of tone. + +The events of the night had happened exclusively inside Mr. Prohack's +head. Nor were they traceable to the demeanour of his wife when he +returned home from the studio. She had mysteriously behaved to him as +though nocturnal excursions to disgraceful daughters in remote quarters +of London were part of his daily routine. She had been very sweet and +very incurious. Whereon Mr. Prohack had said to himself: "She has some +diplomatic reason for being an angel." And even if she had not been an +angel, even if she had been the very reverse of an angel, Mr. Prohack +would not have minded, and his night would not have been thereby upset; +for he regarded her as a beautiful natural phenomenon is regarded by a +scientist, lovingly and wonderingly, and he was incapable of being +irritated for more than a few seconds by anything that might be done or +said by this forest creature of the prime who had strayed charmingly +into the twentieth century. He was a very fortunate husband. + +No! The eventfulness of the night originated in reflection upon the +relations between Sissie and Ozzie Morfey. If thoughts could take +physical shape and solidity, the events of the night would have amounted +to terrible collisions and catastrophes in the devil-haunted abysses of +Mr. Prohack's brain. The forces of evil were massacring all opponents +between three and four a.m. It was at this period Mr. Prohack was +convinced that Sissie, in addition to being an indescribably heartless +daughter, was a perfect fool hoodwinked by a perfect ass, and that +Ozzie's motive in the affair was not solely or chiefly admiration for +Sissie, but admiration of the great fortune which, he had learnt, had +fallen into the lap of Sissie's father. After five o'clock, according to +the usual sequence, the forces of evil lost ground, and at six-thirty, +when the oblong of the looking-glass glimmered faintly in the dawn, Mr. +Prohack said roundly: "I am an idiot," and went to sleep. + +"Now, darling," said Eve when he emerged from the bathroom. "Don't waste +any more time. I want you to give me your opinion about something +downstairs." + +"Child," said Mr. Prohack. "What on earth do you mean--'wasting time'? +Haven't you insisted, and hasn't your precious doctor insisted, that I +must read the papers for an hour in bed after I've had my breakfast in +bed? Talk about 'wasting time' indeed!" + +"Yes, of course darling," Eve concurred, amazingly angelic. "I don't +mean you've been wasting time; only I don't want you to waste any _more_ +time." + +"My mistake," said Mr. Prohack. + +From mere malice and wickedness he spun out the business of dressing to +nearly its customary length, and twice Eve came uneasily into the +bedroom to see if she could be of assistance to him. No nurse could have +been so beautifully attentive. During one of her absences he slipped +furtively downstairs into the drawing-room, where he began to strum on +the piano, though the room was yet by no means properly warm. She came +after him, admirably pretending not to notice that he was behaving +unusually. She was attired for the street, and she carried his hat and +his thickest overcoat. + +"You're coming out," said she, holding up the overcoat cajolingly. + +"That's just where you're mistaken," said he. + +"But I want to show you something." + +"What do you want to show me?" + +"You shall see when you come out." + +"Is it by chance the bird of the mountains that I am to see?" + +"The bird of the mountains? My dear Arthur! What are you driving at +now?" + +"Is it the Eagle car?" And as she staggered speechless under the blow he +proceeded: "Ah! Did you think you could deceive _me_ with your infantile +conspiracies and your tacit deceits and your false smiles?" + +She blushed. + +"Some one's told you. And I do think it's a shame!" + +"And who should have told me? Who have I seen? I suppose you think I +picked up the information at Putney last night. And haven't you opened +all my letters since I was ill, on the pretext of saving me worry? Shall +I tell you how I know? I knew from your face. Your face, my innocent, +can't be read like a book. It can be read like a newspaper placard, and +for days past I've seen on it, 'Extra special. Exciting purchase of a +motor-car by a cunning wife.'" Then he laughed. "No, chit. That fellow +Oswald Morfey, let it out last night." + +When she had indignantly enquired how Oswald Morfey came to be mixed up +in her private matters, she said: + +"Well, darling, I hope I needn't tell you that my _sole_ object was to +save you trouble. The car simply had to be bought, and as quickly as +possible, so I did it. Need I tell you--" + +"You needn't, certainly," Mr. Prohack agreed, and going to the window he +lifted the curtain. Yes. There stood a real car, a landaulette, with the +illustrous eagle on the front of its radiator, and a real chauffeur by +its side. The thing seemed entirely miraculous to Mr. Prohack; and he +was rather impressed by his wife's daring and enterprise. After all, it +was somewhat of an undertaking for an unworldly woman to go out alone +into the world and buy a motor-car and engage a chauffeur, not to +mention clothing the chauffeur. But Mr. Prohack kept all his +imperturbability. + +"Isn't it lovely?" + +"Is it paid for?" + +"Oh, no!" + +"Didn't you have to pay any deposit?" + +"Of course I didn't. I gave your name, and that was sufficient. We +needn't keep it if we don't like it after the trial run." + +"And is it insured?" + +"Of course, darling." + +"And what about the licence?" + +"Oh! The Eagle Company saw to all those stupid things for me." + +"And how many times have you forged my signature while I've been lying +on a bed of pain?" + +"The fact is, darling, I made the purchase in my own name. Now come +_along_. We're going round the park." + +The way she patted his overcoat when she had got it on to him...! The +way she took him by the hand and pulled him towards the drawing-room +door...! She had done an exceedingly audacious deed, and her spirits +rose as she became convinced from his demeanour that she had not pushed +audacity too far. (For she was never absolutely sure of him.) + +"Wait one moment," said Mr. Prohack releasing himself and slipping back +to the window. + +"What's the matter?" + +"I merely desired to look at the chauffeur's face. Is it a real +chauffeur? Not an automaton?" + +"Arthur!" + +"You're sure he's quite human?" Mrs. Prohack closed the piano, and then +stamped her foot. + +"Listen," said Mr. Prohack. "I'm about to trust my life to the +mysterious being inside that uniform. Did you imagine that I would trust +my life to a perfect stranger? In another half hour he and I may be +lying in hospital side by side. And I don't even know his name! Fetch +him in, my dove, and allow me to establish relations with him. But +confide to me his name first." The expression on Mrs. Prohack's features +was one of sublime forbearance under ineffable provocation. + +"This is Carthew," she announced, bringing the chauffeur into the +drawing-room. + +Carthew was a fairly tall, fairly full-bodied, grizzled man of about +forty; he carried his cap and one gauntleted glove in one gloved hand, +and his long, stiff green overcoat slanted down from his neck to his +knees in an unbroken line. He had the impassivity of a policeman. + +"Good morning, Carthew," Mr. Prohack began, rising. "I thought that you +and I would like to make one another's acquaintance." + +"Yes, sir." + +Mr. Prohack held out his hand, which Carthew calmly took. + +"Will you sit down?" + +"Thank you, sir." + +"Have a cigarette?" Carthew hesitated. + +"Do you mind if I have one of my own, sir?" + +"These are Virginian." + +"Oh! Thank you, sir." And Carthew took a cigarette from Mr. Prohack's +case. + +"Light?" + +"After you, sir." + +"No, no." + +"Thank you, sir." + +Carthew coughed, puffed, and leaned back a little in his chair. At this +point Mrs. Prohack left the room. (She said afterwards that she left the +room because she couldn't have borne to be present when Carthew's back +broke the back of the chair.) + +Carthew sat silent. + +"Well," said Mr. Prohack. "What do you think of the car? I ought to tell +you I know nothing of motors myself, and this is the first one I've ever +had." + +"The Eagle is a very good car, sir. If you ask me I should say it was +light on tyres and a bit thirsty with petrol. It's one of them cars as +anybody can _drive_--if you understand what I mean. I mean anybody can +make it _go_. But of course that's only the beginning of what I call +driving." + +"Just so," agreed Mr. Prohack, drawing by his smile a very faint smile +from Carthew. "My son seems to think it's about the best car on the +market." + +"Well, sir, I've been mixed up with cars pretty well all my life--I mean +since I was twenty--" + +"Have you indeed!" + +"I have, sir--" Carthew neatly flicked some ash on the carpet, and Mr. +Prohack thoughtfully did the same--"I have, sir, and I haven't yet come +across the best car on the market, if you understand what I mean." + +"Perfectly," said Mr. Prohack. + +Carthew sat silent. + +"But it's a very good car. Nobody could wish for a better. I'll say +that," he added at length. + +"Had many accidents in your time?" + +"I've been touched, sir, but I've never touched anything myself. You can +have an accident while you're drawn up alongside the kerb. It rather +depends on how many fools have been let loose in the traffic, doesn't +it, sir, if you understand what I mean." + +"Exactly," said Mr. Prohack. + +Carthew sat silent. + +"I gather you've been through the war," Mr. Prohack began again. + +"I was in the first Territorial regiment that landed in France, and I +got my discharge July 1919." + +"Wounded?" + +"Well, sir, I've been blown up twice and buried once and pitched into +the sea once, but nothing ever happened to me." + +"I see you don't wear any ribbons." + +"It's like this, sir. I've seen enough ribbons on chests since the +armistice. It isn't as if I was one of them conscripts." + +"No," murmured Mr. Prohack thoughtfully; then brightening: "And as soon +as you were discharged you went back to your old job?" + +"I did and I didn't, sir. The fact is, I've been driving an ambulance +for the City of London, but as soon as I heard of something private I +chucked that. I can't say as I like these Corporations. There's a bit +too much stone wall about them Corporations, for my taste." + +"Family man?" asked Mr. Prohack lightly. "I've two children myself and +both of them can drive." + +"Really, sir, I am a family man, as ye might say, but my wife and me, +we're best apart." + +"Sorry to hear that. I didn't want to--" + +"Oh, not at all, sir! That's all right. But you see--the war--me being +away and all that--I've got the little boy. He's nine." + +"Well," said Mr. Prohack, jumping up nervously, "suppose we go and have +a look at the car, shall we?" + +"Certainly, sir," said Carthew, throwing the end of his cigarette into +the fender, and hastening. + +"My dove," said Mr. Prohack to his wife in the hall. "I congratulate you +on your taste in chauffeurs. Carthew and I have laid the foundations of +a lasting friendship." + +"I really wonder you asked him to smoke in the drawing-room," Mrs. +Prohack critically observed. + +"Why? He saved England for me; and now I'm trusting my life to him." + +"I do believe you'd _like_ there to be a revolution in this country." + +"Not at all, angel! And I don't think there'll be one. But I'm taking my +precautions in case there should be one." + +"He's only a chauffeur." + +"That's very true. He was doing some useful work, driving an ambulance +to hospitals. But we've stopped that. He's now only a chauffeur to the +idle rich." + +"Oh, Arthur! I wish you wouldn't try to be funny on such subjects. You +know you don't mean it." + +Mrs. Prohack was now genuinely reproachful, and the first conjugal +joy-ride might have suffered from a certain constraint had it taken +place. It did not, however, take place. Just as Carthew was holding out +the rug (which Eve's prodigious thoroughness had remembered to buy) +preparatory to placing it on the knees of his employers, a truly +gigantic automobile drove up to the door, its long bonnet stopping +within six inches of the Eagle's tail-lantern. The Eagle looked like +nothing at all beside it. Mr. Prohack knew that leviathan. He had many +times seen it in front of the portals of his principal club. It was the +car of his great club crony, Sir Paul Spinner, the "city magnate." + +Sir Paul, embossed with carbuncles, got out, and was presently being +presented to Eve,--for the friendship between Mr. Prohack and Sir Paul +had been a purely club friendship. Like many such friendships it had had +no existence beyond the club, and neither of the cronies knew anything +of real interest about the domestic circumstances of the other. Sir Paul +was very apologetic to Eve, but he imperiously desired an interview with +Mr. Prohack at once. Eve most agreeably and charmingly said that she +would take a little preliminary airing in the car by herself, and return +for her husband. Mr. Prohack would have preferred her to wait for him; +but, though Eve was sagacious enough at all normal times, when she got +an idea into her head that idea ruthlessly took precedence of everything +else in the external world. Moreover the car was her private creation, +and she was incapable of resisting its attractions one minute longer. + + +II + + +"I hear you've come into half a million, Arthur," said Paul Spinner, +after he had shown himself very friendly and optimistic about Mr. +Prohack's health and given the usual bulletin about his own carbuncles +and the shortcomings of the club. + +"But you don't believe it, Paul." + +"I don't," agreed Paul. "Things get about pretty fast in the City and we +can size them up fairly well; and I should say, putting two and two +together, that a hundred and fifty thousand would be nearer the mark." + +"It certainly is," said Mr. Prohack. + +If Paul Spinner had suggested fifty thousand, Mr. Prohack would have +corrected him, but being full of base instincts he had no impulse to +correct the larger estimate, which was just as inaccurate. + +"Well, well! It's a most romantic story and I congratulate you on it. +No such luck ever happened to me." Sir Paul made this remark in a tone +to indicate that he had had practically no luck himself. And he really +believed that he had had no luck, though the fact was that he touched no +enterprise that failed. Every year he signed a huger cheque for +super-tax, and every year he signed it with a gesture signifying that he +was signing his own ruin. + +This distressing illusion of Sir Paul's was probably due to his +carbuncles, which of all pathological phenomena are among the most +productive of a pessimistic philosophy. The carbuncles were well known +up and down Harley Street. They were always to be cured and they never +were cured. They must have cost their owner about as much as his +motor-car for upkeep--what with medical fees, travelling and foreign +hotels--and nobody knew whether they remained uncured because they were +incurable or because the medical profession thought it would be cruel at +one stroke to deprive itself of a regular income and Sir Paul of his +greatest hobby. The strange thing was that Sir Paul with all his +powerful general sagacity and shrewdness, continued firmly, despite +endless disappointments, in the mystical faith that one day the +carbuncles would be abolished. + +"I won't beat about the bush," said he. "We know one another. I came +here to talk frankly and I'll talk frankly." + +"You go right ahead," Mr. Prohack benevolently encouraged him. + +"First of all I should like to give you just the least hint of warning +against that fellow Softly Bishop. I daresay you know something' about +him--" + +"I know nothing about him, except the way he looks down his nose. But no +man who looks down his nose the way he looks down his nose is going to +influence me in the management of my financial affairs. I'm only an +official; I should be a lamb in the City; but I have my safeguards, old +chap. Thanks for the tip all the same." + +Sir Paul Spinner laughed hoarsely, as Mr. Prohack had made him laugh +hundreds of times in the course of their friendship. And Mr. Prohack was +aware of a feeling of superiority to Sir Paul. The feeling grew steadily +in his breast, and he was not quite sure how it originated. Perhaps it +was due to a note of dawning obsequiousness in Sir Paul's laugh, +reminding Mr. Prohack of the ancient proverb that the jokes of the +exalted are always side-splitting. + +"As I say," Sir Paul proceeded, "you and I know each other." + +Mr. Prohack nodded, with a trace of impatience against unnecessary +repetition. Yet he was suddenly struck with the odd thought that Sir +Paul certainly did not know him, but only odd bits of him; and he was +doubtful whether he knew Sir Paul. He saw an obese man of sixty sitting +in the very chair that a few moments ago had been occupied by Carthew +the chauffeur, a man with big purplish features and a liverish eye, a +man smoking a plutocratic and heavenly cigar and eating it at the same +time, a man richly dressed and braided and jewelled, a man whose boots +showed no sign of a crease, an obvious millionaire of the old type, in +short a man who was practically all prejudices and waste-products. And +he wondered why and how that man had become his friend and won his +affection. Sir Paul looked positively coarse in Mr. Prohack's frail +Chippendale drawing-room, seeming to need for suitable environment the +pillared marble and gilt of the vast Club. Well, after having eaten many +hundreds of meals and drunk many hundreds of cups of coffee in the +grunting society of Sir Paul, all that Mr. Prohack could be sure of +knowing about Sir Paul was, first, that he had an absolutely unspotted +reputation; second, that he was a very decent, simple-minded, kindly, +ignorant fellow (ignorant, that is, in the matters that interested Mr. +Prohack); third, that he instinctively mistrusted intellect and +brilliance; fourth, that for nearly four years he had been convinced +that Germany would win the war, and fifth, that he was capable of +astounding freaks of generosity. Stay, there was another item,--Sir +Paul's invariable courtesy to the club servants, which courtesy he +somehow contrived to combine with continual grumbling. The club servants +held him in affection. It was probably this sixth item that outweighed +any of the others in Mr. Prohack's favourable estimate of the financier. + +And then Mr. Prohack, as in a dream, heard from the lips of Paul Spinner +the words, "oil concessions in Roumania." In a flash, in an earthquake, +in a blinding vision, Mr. Prohack instantaneously understood the origin +of his queer nascent feeling of superiority to old Paul. What he had +previously known subconsciously he now knew consciously. Old Paul who +had no doubt been paying in annual taxes about ten times the amount of +Mr. Prohack's official annual salary; old Paul whose name was the +synonym for millions and the rumours of whose views on the stock-markets +caused the readers of financial papers to tremble; old Paul was after +Mr. Prohack's money! Marvellous, marvellous, thrice marvellous money!... +It was the most astounding, the most glorious thing that ever happened. +Mr. Prohack immediately began to have his misgivings about Sir Paul +Spinner. Simultaneously he felt sorry for old Paul. And such was his +constraint that he made the motion of swallowing, and had all he could +do not to blush. + +Mr. Prohack might be a lamb in the City, but he had a highly trained +mind, and a very firm grasp of the mere technique of finance. Therefore +Sir Paul could explain himself succinctly and precisely in technical +terms, and he did so--with much skill and a sort of unconsidered +persuasiveness, realising in his rough commonsense that there was no +need to drive ideas into Mr. Prohack's head with a steam-hammer, or to +intoxicate him with a heady vapour of superlatives. + +In a quarter of an hour Mr. Prohack learnt that Sir Paul was promoting a +strictly private syndicate as a preliminary to the formation of a big +company for the exploitation of certain options on Roumanian +oil-territory which Sir Paul held. He learnt about the reports of the +trial borings. He learnt about the character and the experience of the +expert whom Sir Paul had sent forth to Roumania. He learnt about the +world-supply of oil and the world-demand for oil. He learnt about the +great rival oil-groups that were then dividing the universe of oil. He +had the entire situation clearly mapped on his brain. Next he obtained +some startling inside knowledge about the shortage of liquid capital in +the circles of "big money," and then followed Sir Paul's famous club +disquisition upon the origin of the present unsaleableness of securities +and the appalling uneasiness, not to say collapse, of markets. + +"What we want is stability, old boy. We want to be left alone. We're +being governed to death. Social reform is all right. I believe in it, +but everything depends on the pace. Change there ought to be, but it +mustn't be like a transformation scene in a pantomime." + +And so on. + +Mr. Prohack was familiar with it all. He expected the culminating part +of the exposition. But Sir Paul curved off towards the navy and the need +of conserving in British hands a more than adequate gush of oil for the +navy. Mr. Prohack wished that Sir Paul could have left out the navy. And +then the Empire was reached. Mr. Prohack wished that Sir Paul could have +left out the Empire. Finally Sir Paul arrived at the point. + +"I've realised all I can in reason and I'm eighty thousand short. Of +course I can get it, get it easily, but not without giving away a good +part of my show in quarters that I should prefer to keep quite in the +dark. I thought of you--you're clean outside all that sort of thing, and +also I know you'd lie low. You might make a hundred per cent; you might +make two hundred per cent. But I'll guarantee you this--you won't lose, +whatever happens. Of course your capital may not be liquid. You mayn't +be able to get at it. I don't know. But I thought it was just worth +mentioning to you, and so I said to myself I'd look in here on my way to +the City." + +Sir Paul Spinner touting for a miserable eighty thousand pounds! + +"Hanged if I know _how_ my capital is!" said Mr. Prohack. + +"I suppose your lawyer knows. Smathe, isn't it?... I heard so." + +"How soon do you want an answer, yes or no?" Mr. Prohack asked, with a +feeling that he had his back to the wall and old Paul had a gun. + +"I don't want an answer now, anyhow, old boy. You must think it over. +You see, once we've got the thing, I shall set the two big groups +bidding against each other for it, and we shall see some fun. And I +wouldn't ask them for cash payments. Only for payment in their own +shares--which are worth more than money." + +"Want an answer to-morrow?" + +"Could you make it to-night?" Sir Paul surprisingly answered. "And +assuming you say yes--I only say assuming--couldn't you run down with me +to Smathe's now and find out about your capital? That wouldn't bind you +in any way. I'm particularly anxious you should think it over very +carefully. And, by the way, better keep these papers to refer to. But if +you can't get at your capital, no use troubling further. That's the +first thing to find out." + +"I can't go to Smathe's now," Mr. Prohack stammered. + +"Why not?" + +"Because I'm going out with my wife in the car." + +"But, my dear old boy, it's a big thing, and it's urgent." + +"Yes, I quite see that. But I've got to go with Marian. I'll tell you +what I can do. I'll telephone Smathe that you're coming down to see him +yourself, and he must tell you everything. That'll be best. Then I'll +let you know my decision later." + +As they parted, Sir Paul said: + +"We know each other, and you may take it from me it's all right. I'll +say no more. However, you think it over." + +"Oh! I will!" + +Old Paul touting for eighty thousand pounds! A wondrous world! A +stupefying world! + +Mr. Prohack, who didn't know what to do with a hundred thousand pounds, +saw himself the possessor of a quarter of a million, and was illogically +thrilled by the prospect. But the risk! Supposing that honest Paul was +wrong for once, or suppose he was carried off in the night by a +carbuncle,--Mr. Prohack might find himself a pauper with a mere trifle +of twenty thousand pounds to his name. + +As soon as he had telephoned he resumed his hat and coat and went out on +to the pavement to look for his car, chauffeur and wife. There was not a +sign of them. + + * * * * * + +III + + +Mr. Prohack was undeniably a very popular man. He had few doubts +concerning the financial soundness of old Paul's proposition; but he +hesitated, for reasons unconnected with finance or with domesticity, +about accepting it. And he conceived the idea (which none but a very +peculiar man would have conceived) of discussing the matter with some +enemy of old Paul's. Now old Paul had few enemies. Mr. Prohack, however, +could put his hand on one,--Mr. Francis Fieldfare--the editor of an +old-established and lucrative financial weekly, and familiar to readers +of that and other organs as "F.F." Mr. Fieldfare's offices were quite +close to Mr. Prohack's principal club, of which Mr. Fieldfare also was a +member, and Mr. Fieldfare had the habit of passing into the club about +noon and reading the papers for an hour, lunching early, and leaving the +club again just as the majority of the members were ordering their +after-lunch coffee. Mr. Fieldfare pursued this course because he had a +deep instinct for being in the minority. Mr. Prohack looked at his +watch. The resolution of every man is limited in quantity. Only in mad +people is resolution inexhaustible. Mr. Prohack had no more resolution +than becomes an average sane fellow, and his resolution to wait for his +wife had been seriously tried by the energetic refusal to go with +Spinner to see Smathe. It now suddenly gave out. + +"Pooh!" said Mr. Prohack. "I've waited long enough for her. She'll now +have to wait a bit for me." + +And off he went by taxi to his club. The visit, he reflected, would +serve the secondary purpose of an inconspicuous re-entry into club-life +after absence from it. + +He thought: + +"They may have had an accident with that car. One day she's certain to +have an accident anyhow,--she's so impulsive." + +Of course Mr. Fieldfare was not in the morning-room of the club as he +ought to have been. That was bound to happen. Mr. Prohack gazed around +at the monumental somnolence of the great room, was ignored, and backed +out into the hall, meaning to return home. But in the hall he met F.F. +just arriving. It surprised and perhaps a little pained Mr. Prohack to +observe that F.F. had evidently heard neither of his illness nor of his +inheritance. + +Mr. Fieldfare was a spare, middle-aged man, of apparently austere habit; +short, shabby; a beautiful, resigned face, burning eyes, and a soft +voice. He was weighed down, and had been weighed down for thirty years, +by a sense of the threatened immediate collapse of society--of all +societies, and by the solemn illusion that he more clearly than anybody +else understood the fearful trend of events. + +Mr. Prohack had once, during the war, remarked on seeing F.F. glance at +the tape in the Club: "Look at F.F. afraid lest there may be some good +news." Nevertheless he liked F.F. + +As editor of a financial weekly, F.F. naturally had to keep well under +control his world-sadness. High finance cannot prosper in an atmosphere +of world-sadness, and hates it. F.F. ought never to have become the +editor of a financial weekly; but he happened to be an expert +statistician, an honest man and a courageous man, and an expert in the +pathology of stock-markets, and on this score his proprietors excused +the slight traces of world-sadness occasionally to be found in the +paper. He might have left his post and obtained another; but to be +forced by fate to be editor of a financial weekly was F.F.'s chief +grievance in life, and he loved a good grievance beyond everything. + +"But, my dear fellow," said F.F. with his melancholy ardent glance, when +Mr. Prohack had replied suitably to his opening question. "I'd no idea +you'd been unwell. I hope it isn't what's called a breakdown." + +"Oh, no!" Mr. Prohack laughed nervously. "But you know what doctors are. +A little rest has been prescribed." + +F.F. gazed at him softly compassionate, as if to indicate that nothing +but trouble could be expected under the present political regime. They +examined the tape together. + +"Things can't go on much longer like this," observed F.F. +comprehensively, in front of the morning's messages from the capitals of +the world. + +"Still," said Mr. Prohack, "we've won the war, haven't we?" + +"I suppose we have," said F.F. and sighed. + +Mr. Prohack felt that he had no more time for preliminaries, and in +order to cut them short started some ingenious but quite inexcusable +lying. + +"You didn't chance to see old Paul Spinner going out as you came in?" + +"No," answered F.F. "Why?" + +"Nothing. Only a man in the morning-room was wanting to know if he was +still in the Club, and I told him I'd see." + +"I hear," said F.F. after a moment, and in a lower voice, "I hear he's +getting up some big new oil scheme." + +"Ah!" murmured Mr. Prohack, delighted at so favourable a coincidence, +with a wonderful imitation of casualness. "And what may that be?" + +"Nobody knows. Some people would give a good deal to know. But if I'm +any judge of my Spinner they won't know till he's licked off all the +cream. It's marvellous to me how Spinner and his sort can keep on +devoting themselves to the old ambitions while the world's breaking up. +Marvellous!" + +"Money, you mean?" + +"Personal aggrandisement." + +"Well," answered Mr. Prohack, with a judicial, detached air. "I've +always found Spinner a very decent agreeable chap." + +"Oh, yes! Agreed! Agreed! They're all too confoundedly agreeable for +anything, all that lot are." + +"But surely he's honest?" + +"Quite. As straight a man as ever breathed, especially according to his +own lights. All his enterprises are absolutely what is known as 'sound.' +They all make rich people richer, and in particular they make _him_ +richer, though I bet even he's been feeling the pinch lately. They all +have." + +"Still, I expect old Spinner desires the welfare of the country just as +much as any one else. It's not all money with him." + +"No. But did you ever know Spinner touch anything that didn't mean money +in the first place? I never did. What he and his lot mean by the welfare +of the country is the stability of the country _as it is_. They see the +necessity for development, improvement in the social scheme. Oh, yes! +They see it and admit it. Then they go to church, or they commune with +heaven on the golf-course, and their prayer is: 'Give us needed change, +O Lord, but not just yet.'" + +The pair moved to the morning-room. + +"Look here," said Mr. Prohack, lightly, ignoring the earnestness in +F.F.'s tone. "Supposing you had a bit of money, say eighty thousand +pounds, and the chance to put it into one of old who-is-it's schemes, +what would you do?" + +"I should be ashamed to have eighty thousand pounds," F.F. replied with +dark whispering passion. "And in any case nothing would induce me to +have any dealings with the gang." + +"Are they all bad?" + +"They're all bad, all! They are all anti-social. All! They are all a +curse to the country and to all mankind." F.F. had already rung the +bell, and he now beckoned coldly to the waitress who entered the room. +"Everybody who supports the present Government is guilty of a crime +against human progress. Bring me a glass of that brown sherry I had +yesterday--you know the one--and three small pieces of cheese." + +Mr. Prohack went away to the telephone, and got Paul Spinner at Smathe's +office. + +"I only wanted to tell you that I've decided to come into your show, if +Smathe can arrange for the money. I've thought it all over carefully, +and I'm yours, old boy." + +He hung up the receiver immediately. + + * * * * * + +IV + + +The excursion to the club had taken longer than Mr. Prohack had +anticipated, and when he got back home it was nearly lunch-time. No sign +of an Eagle car or any other car in front of the house! Mr. Prohack let +himself in. The sounds of a table being set came from the dining-room. +He opened the door there. Machin met him at the door. Each withdrew from +the other, avoiding a collision. + +"Your mistress returned?" + +"Yes, sir." Machin seemed to hesitate, her mind disturbed. + +"Where is she?" + +"I was just coming to tell you, sir. She told me to say that she was +lying down." + +"Oh!" + +Disdaining further to interrogate the servant, he hurried upstairs. He +had to excuse himself to Eve, and he had also to justify to her the +placing of eighty thousand pounds in a scheme which she could not +possibly understand and for which there was nothing whatever to show. +She would approve, of course; she would say that she had complete +confidence in his sagacity, but all the inflections of her voice, all +her gestures and glances, would indicate to him that in her opinion he +was a singularly ingenuous creature, the natural prey of sharpers, and +that the chances of their not being ruined by his incurable simplicity +were exceedingly small. His immense reputation in the Treasury, his +sinister fame as the Terror of the departments, would not weigh an atom +in her general judgment of the concrete case affecting the fortunes of +the Prohack family. Then she would be brave; she would be bravely +resigned to the worst. She would kiss his innocence. She would quite +unconvincingly assure him, in her own vocabulary, that he was a devil of +a fellow and the smartest man in the world. + +Further, she would draw in the horns of her secret schemes of +expenditure. She would say that she had intended to do so-and-so and to +buy so-and-so, but that perhaps it would be better, in view of the +uncertainties of destiny, neither to do nor to buy so-and-so. In short, +she would succeed in conveying to him the idea that to live with him was +like being in an open boat with him adrift in the middle of the stormy +Atlantic. She loved to live with him, the compensations were exquisite, +and moreover what would be his fate if he were alone? Still, it was like +being in an open boat with him adrift in the middle of the stormy +Atlantic. And she would cling closer to him and point to the red sun +setting among black clouds of tempest. And this would continue until he +could throw say about a hundred and sixty thousand pounds into her lap, +whereupon she would calmly assert that in her opinion he and she had +really been safe all the while on the glassy lake of the Serpentine in a +steamer. + +"I ought to have thought of all that before," he said to himself. "And +if I had I should have bought houses, something for her to look at and +touch. And even then she would have suggested that if I hadn't been a +coward I could have done better than houses. She would have found in +_The Times_ every day instances of companies paying twenty and thirty +per cent ... No! It would have been impossible for me to invest the +money without losing her esteem for me as a man of business. I wish to +heaven I hadn't got any money. So here goes!" + +And he burst with assumed confidence into the bedroom. And +simultaneously, to intensify his unease, the notion that profiteering +was profiteering, whether in war or in peace, and the notion that F.F. +was a man of lofty altruistic ideals, surged through his distracted +mind. + +Eve was lying on the bed. She looked very small on the bed, smaller than +usual. At the sound of the door opening she said, without moving her +head--he could not see her face from the door: + +"Is that you, Arthur?" + +"Yes, what's the matter?" + +"Just put my cloak over my feet, will you?" + +He came forward and took the cloak off a chair. + +"What's the matter?" he repeated, arranging the cloak. + +"I'm not hurt, dearest, I assure you I'm not--not at all." She was +speaking in a faint, weak voice, like a little child's. + +"Then you've had an accident?" + +She glanced up at him sideways, timidly, compassionately, and nodded. + +"You mustn't be upset. I told Machin to go on with her work and not to +say anything to you about it. I preferred to tell you myself. I know how +sensitive you are where I'm concerned." + +Mr. Prohack had to adjust his thoughts, somewhat violently, to the new +situation, and he made no reply; but he was very angry about the mere +existence of motor-cars. He felt that he had always had a prejudice +against motor-cars, and that the prejudice was not a prejudice because +it was well-founded. + +"Darling, don't look so stern. It wasn't Carthew's fault. Another car +ran into us. I told Carthew to drive in the Park, and we went right +round the Park in about five minutes. So as I felt sure you'd be a long +time with that fat man, I had the idea of running down to Putney--to see +Sissie." Eve laughed nervously. "I thought I might possibly bring her +home with me.... After the accident Carthew put me into a taxi and I +came back. Of course he had to stay to look after the car. And then you +weren't here when I arrived! Where are you going, dearest?" + +"I'm going to telephone for the doctor, of course," said Mr. Prohack +quietly, but very irritably. + +"Oh, darling! I've sent for the doctor. He wasn't in, they said, but +they said he'd be back quite soon and then he'd come at once. I don't +really need the doctor. I only sent for him because I knew you'd be so +frightfully angry if I didn't." + +Mr. Prohack had returned to the bed. He took his wife's hand. + +"Feel my pulse. It's all right, isn't it?" + +"I can't feel it at all." + +"Oh, Arthur, you never could! I can feel your hand trembling, that's +what I can feel. Now please don't be upset, Arthur." + +"I suppose the car's smashed?" + +She nodded: + +"It's a bit broken." + +"Where was it?" + +"It was just on the other side of Putney Bridge, on the tramlines +there." + +"Carthew wasn't hurt?" + +"Oh, no! Carthew was simply splendid." + +"How did it happen, exactly?" + +"Oh, Arthur, you with your 'exactlys'! Don't ask me. I'm too tired. +Besides, I didn't see it. My eyes were shut." She closed her eyes. + +Suddenly she sat up and put her hand on his shoulder, in a sort of +appeal, vaguely smiling. He tried to smile, but could not. Then her hand +dropped. A totally bewildered expression veiled the anxious kindness in +her eyes. The blood left her face until her cheeks were nearly as white +as the embroidered cloth on the night-table. Her eyes closed. She fell +back. She had fainted. She was just as if dead. Her hand was as cold as +the hand of a corpse. + +Such was Mr. Prohack's vast experience of life that he had not the least +idea what to do in this crisis. But he tremendously regretted that +Angmering, Bishop, and the inventor of the motor-car had ever been born. +He rushed out on to the landing and loudly shouted: "Machin! Machin! +Ring up that d----d doctor again, and if he can't come ring up Dr. Plott +at once." + +"Yes, sir. Yes, sir." + +He rushed back into the bedroom, discovered Eve's smelling-salts, and +held them to her nose. Already the blood was mounting again. + +"Well, she's not dead, anyway!" he said to himself grimly. + +He could see the blood gently mounting, mounting. It was a wonderful, a +mysterious and a reassuring sight. + +"I don't care so long as she isn't injured internally," he said to +himself. + +Eve opened her eyes in a dazed look. Then she grinned as if +apologetically. Then she cried copiously. + +Mr. Prohack heard a car outside. It was Dr. Veiga's. The mere sound of +Dr. Veiga's car soothed Mr. Prohack, accused him of losing his head, and +made a man of him. + +Dr. Veiga entered the bedroom in exactly the same style as on his first +visit to Mr. Prohack himself. He had heard the nature of the case from +Machin on his way upstairs. He listened to Mr. Prohack, who spoke, in +the most deceitful way, as if he had been through scores of such +affairs. + +"Exactly," said Dr. Veiga, examining Eve summarily. "She sat up. The +blood naturally left her head, and she fainted. Fainting is nothing but +a withdrawing of blood from the head. Will you ring for that servant of +yours, please?" + +"I'm positive I'm quite all right, Doctor," Eve murmured. + +"Will you kindly not talk," said he. "If you're so positive you're all +right, why did you send for me? Did you walk upstairs? Then your legs +aren't broken, at least not seriously." He laughed softly. + +But shortly afterwards, when Mr. Prohack, admirably dissembling his +purposes, crept with dignity out of the room, Dr. Veiga followed him, +and shut the door, leaving Machin busy within. + +"I don't think that there is any internal lesion," said Dr. Veiga, with +seriousness. "But I will not yet state absolutely. She has had a very +severe shock and her nerves are considerably jarred." + +"But it's nothing physical?" + +"My dear sir, of course it's physical. Do you conceive the nerves are +not purely physical organs? I can't conceive them as anything but +physical organs. Can you?" + +Mr. Prohack felt schoolboyish. + +"It's you that she's upset about, though. Did you notice she motioned me +to give you some of the brandy she was taking? Very sweet of her, was it +not?... What are you going to do now?" + +"I'm going to fetch my daughter." + +"Excellent. But have something before you go. You may not know it, but +you have been using up nervous tissue, which has to be replaced." + +As he was driving down to Putney in a taxi, Mr. Prohack certainly did +feel very tired. But he was not so tired as not to insist on helping the +engine of the taxi. He pushed the taxi forward with all his might all +the way to Putney. He pushed it till his arms ached, though his hands +were in his pockets. The distance to Putney had incomprehensibly +stretched to nine hundred and ninety-nine miles. + +He found Sissie in the studio giving a private lesson to a middle-aged +gentleman who ought, Mr. Prohack considered, to have been thinking of +his latter end rather than of dancing. He broke up the lesson very +abruptly. + +"Your mother has had a motor accident. You must come at once." + +Sissie came. + +"Then it must have been about here," said she, as the taxi approached +Putney Bridge on the return journey. + +So it must. He certainly had not thought of the _locus_ of the accident. +He had merely pictured it, in his own mind, according to his own +frightened fancy. Yes, it must have been just about there. And yet there +was no sign of it in the roadway. Carthew must have had the wounded +Eagle removed. Mr. Prohack sat stern and silent. A wondrous woman, his +wife! Absurd, possibly, about such matters as investments; but an +angel! Her self-forgetfulness, her absorption in _him_,--staggering! The +accident was but one more proof of it. He was greatly alarmed about her, +for the doctor had answered for nothing. He seemed to have a thousand +worries. He had been worried all his life, but the worries that had +formed themselves in a trail to the inheritance were worse worries than +the old simple ones. No longer did the thought of the inheritance +brighten his mind. He somehow desired to go back to former days. +Glancing askance at Sissie, he saw that she too was stern. He resumed +the hard pushing of the taxi. It was not quite so hard as before, +because he knew that Sissie also was pushing her full share. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE THEORY OF IDLENESS + +I + + +Within the next seven days Mr. Prohack had reason to lose confidence in +himself as an expert in human nature. "After all," he reflected, "I must +have been a very simple-minded man to have thought that I thoroughly +understood another human being. Every human being is infinite, and will +beat your understanding in the end." + +The reference of course was to his wife. Since the automobile accident +she had become another person and a more complex person. The climax, or +what seemed to be the climax, came one cold morning when she and Mr. +Prohack and Sissie and Dr. Veiga were sitting together in the little +boudoir beyond the bedroom. They were packed in there because Eve +(otherwise Marian) had taken a fancy to the sofa. + +Eve was relating to the admired and trusted doctor all her peculiar +mental and moral symptoms. She was saying that she could no longer +manage the house, could not concentrate her mind on anything, could not +refrain from strange caprices, could not remain calm, could not keep her +temper, and was the worst conceivable wife for such a paragon as Arthur +Prohack. Her daughter alone had saved the household organism from a +catastrophe; her daughter Sissie-- + +"Come here, Sissie!" + +Sissie obeyed the call and was suddenly embraced by her mother with deep +tenderness. This in front of the doctor! Still more curious was the fact +that Sissie, of late her mother's frigid critic, came forward and +responded to the embrace almost effusively. The spectacle was really +touching. It touched Mr. Prohack, who yet felt as if the floor had +yielded under his feet and he was falling into the Tube railway +underground. Indeed Mr. Prohack had never had such sensations as drew +and quartered him then. + +"Well," said Dr. Veiga to Mrs. Prohack in his philosophical-realistic +manner, "I've been marking time for a week. I shall now proceed to put +you right. You can't sleep. You will sleep to-night--I shall send you +something. I suppose it isn't your fault that you've been taking the +digestive tonic I sent you last thing at night under the impression that +it was a sedative, in spite of the label. But it is regrettable. As for +your headaches, I will provide a pleasing potion. As for this sad lack +of application, don't attempt application. As for your strange caprices, +indulge them. One thing is essential. You must go away to the sea. You +must go to Frinton-on-Sea. It is an easy journey. There is a Pullman car +on the morning train, and the air is unrivalled for your--shall I +say?--idiosyncrasy." + +"Yes, darling mother," said Sissie. "You must go away, and father and I +will take you." + +"Of course!" confirmed Mr. Prohack, with an imitation of pettishness, as +though he had been steadily advocating a change of scene for days past; +but he had done nothing of the kind. + +"Oh!" Eve cried piteously, "that's the one thing I can't do!" + +Dr. Veiga laughed. "Afraid of the expense, I suppose?" + +"No," Eve answered with seriousness. "My husband has just made a very +fortunate investment, which means a profit of at least a hundred +thousand pounds--like that!" She snapped her fingers and laughed +lightly. + +Here was another point to puzzle an expert in human nature. Instead of +being extremely incredulous and apprehensive about the vast speculation +with Sir Paul, Eve had in truth accepted it for a gold-mine. She did not +assume satisfaction; she really was satisfied. Her satisfaction was +absurd, and nothing that Mr. Prohack could say would diminish it. She +had already begun to spend the financial results of the speculation with +enormous verve. For instance, she had hired another Eagle to take the +place of the wounded Eagle, without uttering a word to her husband of +what she had done. Mr. Prohack could see the dregs of his bank-balance; +and in a dream he had had glimpses of a sinister edifice at the bottom +of a steep slope, the building being the Bankruptcy Court. + +"Is it a railway strike you're afraid of?" demanded Dr. Veiga cruelly. + +And Eve replied with sweetness: + +"I can't leave London until my son Charlie comes back from Glasgow, and +he's written me to say he'll be here next week." + +A first-rate example, this, of her new secretiveness! She had said +absolutely nothing to Mr. Prohack about a letter from Charlie. + +"When did you hear that?" Mr. Prohack might well have asked; but he was +too loyal to her to betray her secretiveness by such a question. He did +not wish the Portuguese quack to know that he, the husband, was kept in +the dark about anything whatever. He had his ridiculous dignity, had +Mr. Prohack, and all his motives were mixed motives. Not a perfectly +pure motive in the whole of his volitional existence! + +However, Sissie put the question in her young blundering way. "Oh, +mother dear! You never told us!" + +"I received the letter the day before yesterday," Eve continued gravely. +"And Charlie is certainly not coming home to find me away." + +For two entire days she had had the important letter and had concealed +it. Mr. Prohack was disturbed. + +"Very well," Dr. Veiga concurred. "It doesn't really matter whether you +go to Frinton now or next month, or even next year but one. You're a +powerful woman and you'll last a long time yet, especially if you don't +worry. I won't call for about a week, and if you'd like to consult +another doctor, do." He smiled on her in an avuncular manner, and rose. + +Whereupon Mr. Prohack also jumped up. + +"I'm not worrying," she protested, with a sweet, pathetic answering +smile. "Yes, I am. Yes, I am. I'm worrying because I know I'm worrying +my poor husband." She went quickly to her poor husband and kissed him +lavishly. Eve was an artist in kissing, and never a greater artist than +at that moment. And now Mr. Prohack, though still to the physical eye a +single individual, became two Mr. Prohacks. There was the Mr. Prohack +who strongly deprecated this departure from the emotional reserve which +is one of the leading and sublimest characteristics of the British +governing-class. And there was the Mr. Prohack, all nerves and heart and +humanity, who profoundly enjoyed the demonstration of a woman's +affection, disordered and against the rules though the demonstration +might be. The first Mr. Prohack blushed and hated himself for blushing. +The second was quite simply enraptured and didn't care who knew it. + +"Dr. Veiga," Eve appealed, clinging to Mr. Prohack's coat. "It is my +husband who needs looking after. He is not making any progress, and it +is my fault. And let me tell you that you've been neglecting him for +me." + +She was a dramatic figure of altruism, of the everlasting sacrificial +feminine. She was quite possibly absurd, but beyond doubt she was +magnificent. Mr. Prohack felt ashamed of himself, and the more ashamed +because he considered that he was in quite tolerable health. + +"Mother," murmured Sissie, with a sweetness of which Mr. Prohack had +imagined her to be utterly incapable. "Come and sit down." + +And Eve, guided by her daughter, the callous, home-deserting +dancing-mistress, came and sat down. + + * * * * * + +II + + +"My dear sir," said Dr. Veiga. "There is nothing at all to cause alarm. +She will gradually recover. Believe me." + +He and Mr. Prohack and Sissie were conspiring together in the +dining-room, the drawing-room being at that hour and on that day under +the dominion of servants with brushes. + +"But what's the matter with her? What is it?" + +"Merely neurasthenia--traumatic neurasthenia." + +"But what's that?" Mr. Prohack spoke low, just as though his wife could +overhear from the boudoir above and was listening to them under the +impression that they were plotting against her life. + +"It's a morbid condition due to a violent shock." + +"But how? You told me the other day that it was purely physical." + +"Well," said Dr. Veiga. "It is, because it must be. But I assure you +that if a post-mortem were to be held on Mrs. Prohack--" + +"Oh, doctor, please!" Sissie stopped him resentfully. + +The doctor paused and then continued: "There would be no trace of any +morbid condition in any of the organs." + +"Then how do you explain it?" + +"We don't explain it," cried Dr. Veiga, suddenly throwing the onus on +the whole medical profession. "We can't. We don't know." + +"It's very, very unsatisfactory, all this ignorance." + +"It certainly is. But did you suppose that medical science, alone among +all sciences, had achieved finality and omniscience? We've reached the +state of knowing that we don't know, and that's something. I hope I'm +not flattering you by talking like this. I only do it to people whom I +suspect to be intelligent. But of course if you'd prefer the omniscient +bedside manner you can have it without extra charge." + +Mr. Prohack thought, frightened: "I shall be making a friend of this +quack soon, if I'm not careful." + +"And by the way, about _your_ health," Dr. Veiga proceeded, after +having given further assurances as to his other patient. "Mrs. Prohack +was perfectly correct. You're not making progress. The fact is, you're +bored. You haven't organised your existence, and the lack of +organisation is reacting on your health." + +"Something is reacting on his health," Sissie put in. "I'm not at all +pleased." She was now not Mr. Prohack's daughter but his aunt. + +"How can I organise my existence?" Mr. Prohack burst out crossly. "I +haven't got any existence to organise. I haven't got anything to do. I +thought I had too much to do, the other day. Illusion. Of course I'm +bored. I feel all right, but bored I am. And it's your fault." + +"It is," the doctor admitted. "It is my fault. I took you for a person +of commonsense, and so I didn't tell you that two and two make four and +a lot more important things of the same sort. I ought to have told you. +You've taken on the new profession of being idle--it's essential for +you--but you aren't treating it seriously. You have to be a +_professionally_ idle man. Which means that you haven't got a moment to +spare. When I advised you to try idleness, I didn't mean you to be idle +idly. That's worse than useless. You've got to be idle busily. You +aren't doing half enough. Do you ever have a Turkish bath?" + +"No. Never could bear the idea of them." + +"Well, you will kindly take two Turkish baths a week. You can be +massaged at the same time. A Turkish bath is as good as a day's hunting, +as far as exercise goes, but you must have more exercise. Do you dance? +I see you don't. You had better begin dancing. There is no finer +exercise. I absolutely prescribe it." + +At this juncture Mr. Prohack was rather relieved that the sound of an +unaccustomed voice in the hall drew his daughter out of the dining-room. +When she had gone Dr. Veiga went on, in a more confidential tone: + +"There's another point. An idle man who really knows his business will +visit his tailor's, his hosier's, his bootmaker's, his barber's much +oftener and much more conscientiously than you do. You've got a mind +above clothes--of course. So have I. I take a wicked pleasure in being +picturesquely untidy. But I'm not a patient. My life is a great lark. +Yours isn't. Yours is serious. You have now a serious profession, +idleness. Bring your mind down to clothes. I say this, partly because to +be consistently well-dressed means much daily expenditure of time, and +partly because really good clothes have a distinctly curative effect on +the patient who wears them. Then again--" + +Mr. Prohack was conscious of a sudden joyous uplifting of the spirit. + +"Here!" said he, interrupting Dr. Veiga with a grand gesture. "Have a +cigar." + +"I cannot, my friend." Dr. Veiga looked at his watch. + +"You must. Have a corona." Mr. Prohack moved to the cigar cabinet which +he had recently purchased. + +"No. My next patient is awaiting me in Hyde Park Gardens at this +moment." + +"Let him die!" exclaimed Mr. Prohack ruthlessly. "You've got to have a +cigar with me. Look. I'll compromise. I'll make it a half-corona. You +can charge me as if for another consultation." + +The doctor's foreign eyes twinkled as he sat down and struck a match. + +"You thought I was a quack," he said maliciously, and maliciously he +seemed to intensify his foreign accent. + +"I did," admitted Mr. Prohack with candour. + +"So I am," said Dr. Veiga. "But I'm a fully qualified quack, and all +really good doctors are quacks. They have to be. They wouldn't be worth +anything if they weren't. Medicine owes a great deal to quacks." + +"Tell me something about some of your cases," said Mr. Prohack +imperatively. "You're one of the most interesting men I've ever met. So +now you know. We want some of your blood transfused, into the English +character. You've got a soul above medicine as well as clothes." + +"All good doctors have," said Dr. Veiga. "My life is a romance." + +"And so shall mine be," said Mr. Prohack. + + * * * * * + +III + + +When at length Mr. Prohack escorted Dr. Veiga out into the hall he saw +Sissie kissing Eliza Brating with much affection on the front-door step. +They made an elegant group for a moment and then Eliza Brating departed +hurriedly, disappearing across the street behind Dr. Veiga's attendant +car. + +"Now I'll just repeat once more to both of you," resumed Dr. Veiga, +embracing father and daughter in one shrewd glance. "You've nothing to +worry about upstairs." He indicated the boudoir by a movement of his +somewhat tousled head. "But you've got just a little to worry about +here." And he indicated Mr. Prohack. + +"I know," said Sissie with assurance. "But I shall look after him, +doctor. You can rely on me. I understand--both cases." + +"Well, there's one good thing," said Sissie, following her father into +the dining-room after the doctor had gone. "I've done with that foolish +Eliza. I knew it couldn't last and it hasn't. Unless I'm there all the +time to keep my eye on everything--of course it all goes to pieces. That +girl is the biggest noodle...!" + +"But haven't I just seen you and her joined in the deepest affection?" + +"Naturally I had to kiss her. But I've finished with her. And what's +more, she knows what I think of her. She never liked me." + +"Sissie," said Mr. Prohack, "you shock me." And indeed he was genuinely +shocked, for he had always thought that Sissie was different from other +girls; that she had all the feminine qualities without any of the +feminine defects. Yes, he had thought that she might develop into a +creature more perfect even than Marian. And here she was talking and +behaving exactly as men at the club would relate of their own +conventional women. + +Sissie gazed firmly at her father, as it were half in pity and half in +disdain. Did the innocent fellow not then understand the nature of +women? Or was he too sentimental to admit it, too romantic to be a +realist? + +"Would you believe," said Sissie, "that although I was there last night +and told her exactly what to do, she's had a quarrel this morning with +the landlord of the studio? Well, she has. You know the A.R.A. on the +first floor has been making a lot of silly complaints about the +noise--music and so on--every night. And some other people have +complained. _I_ could have talked the landlord round in ten minutes! +Eliza doesn't merely not talk him round,--she quarrels with him! Of +course it's all up. And as if that wasn't enough, a County Council +inspector has been round asking about a music and dancing licence. We +shall either have to give up business altogether or else move somewhere +else. Eliza says she knows of another studio. Well, I shall write her +to-night and tell her she can have my share of the fittings and +furniture and go where she likes, but I shan't go with her. And if she +never liked me I can honestly say I never liked her. And I don't want to +run a dancing studio any more, either. Why should I, after all? We +_were_ the new poor. Now we're the new rich. Well, we may as well _be_ +the new rich." + +Mr. Prohack was now still more shocked. Nay, he was almost frightened. +And yet he wasn't either shocked or frightened, in the centre of his +soul. He was rather triumphant,--not about his daughter with the feet of +clay, but about himself. + +"But I shan't give up teaching dancing entirely," said Sissie. + +"No?" He wondered what would come next. + +"No! I shall teach you." + +"Indeed you won't!" He instinctively recoiled. + +"Yes, I shall. I promised the doctor he could rely on me. You'll buy a +gramophone, and we'll have the carpet up in the drawing-room. Oh! You +startled deer, do you want to run back into the depths of the forest?... +Father, you are the funniest father that ever was." She marched to him +and put her hand on his shoulder and just twitched his beard. "I can +look after you quite as well as mother can. We're pals, aren't we?" + +"Yes. Like the tiger and the lamb. You've got hold of my silky fleece +already." + + +IV + +Mr. Prohack sat in the dining-room alone. The room was now heated by an +electric radiator which Eve had just bought for the sake of economy. But +her economy was the economy of the rich, for the amount of expensive +current consumed by that radiator was prodigious, while the saving it +effected in labour, cleanliness and atmospheric purity could certainly +not have been measured without a scientific instrument adapted to the +infinitely little. (Still, Machin admired and loved it.) Mr. Prohack +perceived that all four bars of it were brightly incandescent, whereas +three bars would have been ample to keep the room warm. He ought to get +up and turn a bar off.... He had a hundred preoccupations. His daughter +had classed him with the new rich. He resented the description, but +could he honestly reject it? All his recent troubles sprang from the new +riches. If he had not inherited from a profiteer he would assuredly have +been at his office in the Treasury, earning an honest living, at that +very moment. For only sick persons of plenteous independent means are +ever prescribed for as he had been prescribed for; the others either go +on working and making the best of such health as is left to them, or +they die. If he had not inherited from a profiteer he would not have had +a car and the car would not have had an accident and he would not have +been faced with the prospect (as he was faced with it) of a legal +dispute, to be fought by him on behalf of the insurance company, with +the owner of the colliding car. (The owner of the colliding car was a +young woman as to whose veracity Carthew had had some exceedingly hard +things to say.) Mr. Prohack would have settled the matter, but neither +Eve nor the insurance company would let him settle it. And if the car +had not had an accident Eve would not have had traumatic neurasthenia, +with all its disconcerting reactions on family life. And if he had not +inherited from a profiteer, Charlie would not have gone off to +Glasgow,--he had heard odds and ends of strange tales as to Charlie's +doings in Glasgow,--not in the least reassuring! And if he had not +inherited from a profiteer Sissie would not have taken a share in a +dancing studio and might never have dangerously danced with that worm +Oswald Morfey. And if he had not inherited from a profiteer he would not +have been speculating, with a rich chance of more profiteering, in +Roumanian oil with Paul Spinner. In brief--well, he ought to get up and +turn off a bar of that wasteful radiator. + +Yet he was uplifted, happy. Not because of his wealthy ease. No! A week +or two ago he had only to think of his fortune to feel uplifted and +happy. But now! + +No! He was uplifted and happy now for the simple reason that he had +caught the romance of the doctor's idea of taking idleness seriously and +practising it as a profession. If circumstances forced him to be idle, +he would be idle in the grand manner. He would do everything that the +doctor had suggested, and more. (The doctor saw life like a poet. He +might be a cross between a comedian and a mountebank, but he was a great +fellow.) Every species of idleness should have its appointed hour. In +the pursuit of idleness he would become the busiest man in London. A +definite programme would be necessary. Strict routine would be +necessary. No more loafing about! He hankered after routine as the +drunkard after alcohol. Routine was what he had been missing. The +absence of routine, and naught else, was retarding his recovery. (Yes, +he knew in his heart that what they all said was true,--he was not +getting better.) His own daughter had taught him wisdom. Inevitably, +unavoidably, he was the new rich. Well, he would be the new rich +thoroughly. No other aim was logical.... Let the radiator burn! + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +NEURASTHENIA CURED + +I + + +Three days later Mr. Prohack came home late with his daughter in the +substituted car. He had accompanied Sissie to Putney for the final +disposition of the affairs of the dance-studio, and had witnessed her +blighting politeness to Eliza Brating and Eliza Brating's blighting +politeness to her. The last kiss between these two young women would +have desolated the heart of any man whose faith in human nature was less +strong than Mr. Prohack's. "I trust that the excellent Eliza is not +disfigured for life," he had observed calmly in the automobile. "What +are you talking about, father?" Sissie had exclaimed, suspicious. "I was +afraid her lips might be scorched. You feel no pain yourself, my child, +I hope?" He made the sound of a kiss. After this there was no more +conversation in the car during the journey. Arrived home, Sissie said +nonchalantly that she was going to bed. + +"Burn my lips first," Mr. Prohack implored. + +"Father!" said she, having kissed him. "You are simply terrible." + +"I am a child," he replied. "And you are my grandmother." + +"You wait till I give you your next dancing-lesson," Sissie retorted, +turning and threatening him from the stairs. "It won't be as mild as +this afternoon's." + +He smiled, giving an imitation of the sphinx. He was happy enough as +mortals go. His wife was perhaps a little better. And he was gradually +launching himself into an industrious career of idleness. Also, he had +broken the ice,--the ice, that is to say, of tuition in dancing. Not a +word had been spoken abroad in the house about the first dancing-lesson. +He had had it while Mrs. Prohack was, in theory at least, paying calls; +at any rate she had set forth in the car. Mr. Prohack and Sissie had +rolled up the drawing-room carpet and moved the furniture themselves. +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 +after him. Eve had told her husband and child that she should go to bed +early. He meant to have a frolicsome, teasing chat with her, for the +doctor had laid it down that light conversation would assist the cure of +traumatic neurasthenia. She would not be asleep, and even if she were +asleep she would be glad to awaken, because she admired his style of +gossip when both of them were in the vein for it. He would describe for +her the evening at the studio humorously, in such a fashion as to +confirm her in her righteous belief that the misguided Sissie had seen +the maternal wisdom and quitted dance-studios for ever. + +The lamps were out in the bedroom. She slept. He switched on a light, +but her bed was empty; it had not been occupied! + +"Marian!" he called in a low voice, thinking that she might be in the +boudoir. + +And if she was in the boudoir she must be reclining in the dark there. +He ascertained that she was not in the boudoir. Then he visited both +the drawing-room and the dining-room. No Marian anywhere! He stood a +moment in the hall and was in a mind to ring for Machin--he could see +from a vague illumination at the entrance to the basement steps that the +kitchen was still inhabited--but just then all the servants came upwards +on the way to the attics, and at the strange spectacle of their dancing +master in the hall they all grew constrained and either coughed or +hurried as though they ought not to be caught in the act of retiring to +bed. + +Mr. Prohack, as it were, threw a lasso over Machin, who was the last of +the procession. + +"Where is your mistress, Machin?" He tried to be matter-of-fact, but +something unusual in his tone apparently started her. + +"She's gone to bed, sir. She told me to put her hot-water bag in the bed +early." + +"Oh! Thanks! Good-night." + +"Good-night, sir." + +He could not persuade himself to call an alarm. He could not even inform +Machin that she was mistaken, for to do so would have been equivalent to +calling an alarm. Hesitating and inactive he allowed the black-and-white +damsels and the blue cook to disappear. Nor would he disturb +Sissie--yet. He had first to get used to the singular idea that his wife +had vanished from home. Could this vanishing be one of the effects of +traumatic neurasthenia? He hurried about and searched all the rooms +again, looking with absurd carefulness, as if his wife were an +insignificant object that might have dropped unperceived under a chair +or behind a couch. + +Then he telephoned to her sister, enquiring in a voice of studied +casualness. Eve was not at her sister's. He had known all the while that +she would not be at her sister's. Being unable to recall the number, he +had had to consult the telephone book. His instinct now was to fetch +Sissie, whose commonsense had of late impressed him more and more; but +he repressed the instinct, holding that he ought to be able to manage +the affair alone. He could scarcely say to his daughter: "Your mother +has vanished. What am I to do?" Moreover, feeling himself to be the +guardian of Marian's reputation for perfect sanity, he desired not to +divulge her disappearance, unless obliged to do so. She might return at +any moment. She must return very soon. It was inconceivable that +anything should have "happened" in the Prohack family.... + +Almost against his will he looked up "Police Stations" in the +telephone-book. There were scores of police stations. The nearest seemed +to be that of Mayfair. He demanded the number. To demand the number of +the police station was like jumping into bottomless cold water. In a +detestable dream he gave his name and address and asked if the police +had any news of a street accident. Yes, several. He described his wife. +He said, reflecting wildly, that she was not very tall and rather plump; +dark hair. Dress? Dark blue. Hat and mantle? He could not say. Age? A +queer impulse here. He knew that she hated the mention of her real age, +and so he said thirty-nine. No! The police had no news of such a person. +But the polite firm voice on the wire said that it would telephone to +other stations and would let Mr. Prohack hear immediately if there was +anything to communicate. Wonderful organisation, the London police +force! + +As he hung up the receiver he realised what had occurred and what he had +done. Marian had mysteriously disappeared and he had informed the +police,--he, Arthur Prohack, C.B. What an awful event! + +His mind ran on the consequences of traumatic neurasthenia. He put on +his hat and overcoat and unbolted the front-door as silently as he +could--for he still did not want anybody in the house to know the +secret--and went out into the street. What to do? A ridiculous move! Did +he expect to find her lying in the gutter? He walked to the end of the +dark street and peered into the cross-street, and returned. He had left +the front-door open. As he re-entered the house he descried in a corner +of the hall, a screwed-up telegraph-envelope. Why had he not noticed it +before? He snatched at it. It was addressed to "Mrs. Prohack." + +Mr. Prohack's soul was instantaneously bathed in heavenly solace. +Traumatic neurasthenia had nothing to do with Eve's disappearance! His +bliss was intensified by the fact that he had said not a word to the +servants and had not called Sissie. And it was somewhat impaired by the +other fact that he had been ass enough to tell the police. He was just +puzzling his head to think what misfortune could have called his wife +away--not that the prospect of any misfortune much troubled him now that +Eve's vanishing was explained--when through the doorway he saw a taxi +drive up. Eve emerged from the taxi. + + + +II + + +He might have gone out and paid the fare for her, but he stayed where he +was, in the doorway, thinking with beatific relief that after all +nothing had "happened" in the family. + +"Ah!" he said, in the most ordinary, complacent, quite undisturbed +tone, "I was just beginning to wonder where you'd got to. We've been +back about five minutes, Sissie and I, and Sissie's gone to bed. I +really don't believe she knows you were out." + +Mrs. Prohack came urgently towards him, pushing the door to behind her +with a careless loud bang. The bang might waken the entire household, +but Mrs. Prohack did not care. Mrs. Prohack kissed him without a word. +He possessed in his heart a barometric scale of her kisses, and this was +a set-fair kiss, a kiss with a somewhat violent beginning and a +reluctant close. Then she held her cheek for him to kiss. Both cheek and +lips were freshly cold from the night air. Mr. Prohack was aware of an +immense, romantic felicity. And he immediately became flippant, not +aloud, but secretly, to hide himself from himself. + +He thought: + +"It's a positive fact that I've been kissing this girl of a woman for a +quarter of a century, and she's fat." + +But beneath his flippancy and beneath his felicity there was a +lancinating qualm, which, if he had expressed it he would have expressed +thus: + +"If anything _did_ happen to her, it would be the absolute ruin of me." + +The truth was that his felicity frightened him. Never before had he been +seriously concerned for her well-being. The reaction from grave alarm +lighted up the interior of his mysterious soul with a revealing flash of +unique intensity. + +"What are all these lights burning for?" she murmured. Lights were +indeed burning everywhere. He had been in a mood to turn on but not to +turn off. + +"Oh!" he said, "I was just wandering about." + +"I'll go straight upstairs," she said, trying to be as matter-of-fact as +her Arthur appeared to be. + +When he had leisurely set the whole of the ground-floor to rights, he +followed her. She was waiting for him in the boudoir. She had removed +her hat and mantle, and lighted one of the new radiators, and was +sitting on the sofa. + +"There came a telegram from Charlie," she began. "I was crossing the +hall just as the boy reached the door. So I opened the door myself. It +was from Charlie to say that he would be at the Grand Babylon Hotel +to-night." + +"Charlie! The Grand Babylon!... Not Buckingham Palace." Eve ignored his +crude jocularity. + +"It seems I ought to have received it early in the afternoon. I was so +puzzled I didn't know what to do--I just put my things on and went off +to the hotel at once. It wasn't till after I was in the taxi that I +remembered I ought to have told the servants where I was going. That's +why I hurried back. I wanted to get back before you did. Charlie +suggested telephoning from the hotel, but I wouldn't let him on any +account." + +"Why not?" + +"Well, I thought you might be upset and wonder what on earth was going +on." + +"What was going on?" Mr. Prohack repeated, gazing at her childlike +maternal serious face, whose wistfulness affected him in an +extraordinary way. "What on earth are you insinuating?" + +No! It was inconceivable that this pulsating girl perched on the sofa +should be the mother of the mature and independent Charles. + +"Charlie's _staying_ at the Grand Babylon Hotel," said Eve, as though +she were saying that Charlie had forged a cheque or blown up the +Cenotaph. + +Even the imperturbable man of the world in front of her momentarily +blenched at the news. + +"More fool him!" observed Mr. Prohack. + +"Yes, and he's got a bedroom and a private sitting-room and a bathroom, +and a room for a secretary--" + +"Hence a secretary," Mr. Prohack put in. + +"Yes, and a secretary. And he dictates things to the secretary all the +time, and the telephone's always going,--yes, even at this time of +night. He must be spending enormous sums. So of course I hurried back to +tell you." + +"You did quite right, my pet," said Mr. Prohack. "A good wife should +share these tit-bits with her husband at the earliest possible moment." + +He was really very like what in his more conventional moments he would +have said a woman was like. If Eve had taken the affair lightly he would +without doubt have remonstrated, explaining that such an affair ought by +no means to be taken lightly. But seeing that she took it very +seriously, his instinct was to laugh at it, though in fact he was +himself extremely perturbed by this piece of news, which confirmed, a +hundredfold and in the most startling manner, certain sinister +impressions of his own concerning Charlie's deeds in Glasgow. And he +assumed the gay attitude, not from a desire to reassure his wife, but +from mere contrariness. Positively the strangest husband that ever +lived, and entirely different from normal husbands! + +Then he saw tears hanging in Eve's eyes,--tears not of resentment +against his lack of sympathy, tears of bewilderment and perplexity. She +simply did not understand his attitude. And he sat down close by her on +the sofa and solaced her with three kisses. She was singularly +attractive in her alternations of sagacity and helplessness. + +"But it's awful," she whimpered. "The boy must be throwing money away at +the rate of twenty or twenty-five pounds a day." + +"Very probably," Mr. Prohack agreed. + +"Where's he getting it from?" she demanded. "He must be getting it from +somewhere." + +"I expect he's made it. He's rather clever, you know." + +"But he can't have made money like that." + +"People do, sometimes." + +"Not honestly,--you know what I mean, Arthur!" This was an earthquaking +phrase to come from a mother's lips. + +"And yet," said Mr. Prohack, "everything Charlie did used to be right +for you." + +"But he's carrying on just like an adventurer! I've read in reports of +trials about people carrying on just like that. A fortnight ago he +hadn't got fifty pounds cash in the world, and now he's living like a +millionaire at the Grand Babylon Hotel! Arthur, what are you going to do +about it? Couldn't you go and see him to-night?" + +"Now listen to me," Mr. Prohack began in a new tone, taking her hands. +"Supposing I did go and see him to-night, what could I say to him?" + +"Well, you're his father." + +"And you're his mother. What did _you_ say to him?" + +"Oh! I didn't say anything. I only said I should have been very glad if +he could have arranged to sleep at home as usual, and he said he was +sorry he couldn't because he was so busy." + +"You didn't tell him he was carrying on like an adventurer?" + +"Arthur! How could I?" + +"But you'd like _me_ to tell him something of the sort. All that I can +say, you could say--and that is, enquire in a friendly way what he has +done, is doing, and hopes to do." + +"But--" + +"Yes, my innocent creature. You may well pause." He caressed her, and +she tried to continue in unhappiness, but could not. "You pause because +there is nothing to say." + +"You're his father at any rate," she burst out triumphantly. + +"That's not his fault. You ought to have thought of all this over twenty +years ago, before Charlie was born, before we were married, before you +met me. To become a parent is to accept terrible risks. I'm Charlie's +father. What then? Am I to give him orders as to what he must do and +what he mustn't? This isn't China and it isn't the eighteenth century. +He owes nothing whatever to me, or to you. If we were starving and he +had plenty, he would probably consider it his duty to look after us; but +that's the limit of what he owes us. Whereas nothing can put an end to +our responsibility towards him. You see, we brought him here. We thought +it would be so nice to have children, and so Charlie arrived. He didn't +choose his time, and he didn't choose his character, nor his education, +nor his chance. If he had his choice you may depend he'd have chosen +differently. Do you want me, on the top of all that, to tell him that he +must obediently accept something else from us--our code of conduct? It +would be mere cheek, and with all my shortcomings I'm incapable of +impudence, especially to the young. He was our slave for nearly twenty +years. We did what we liked with him; and if Charlie fails now it simply +means that we've failed. Besides, how can you be sure that he's carrying +on like an adventurer? He may be carrying on like a financial genius. +Perhaps we have brought a giant to earth. We can't believe it of course, +because we haven't got enough faith in ourselves, but later on we may be +compelled to believe it. Naturally if Charlie crashes after a showy +flight, then he won't be a financial genius,--he'll only be an +adventurer, and there may he some slight trouble in the law +courts,--there usually is. That is where we shall have to come forward +and pay for the nice feeling of having children. And, remember, we +shan't be in a position to upbraid Charlie. He could silence us with one +question, to which we could find no answer: 'Why did you get married, +you two?' However, my pet, let us hope for the best. It's not yet a +crime to live at great price at the Grand Babylon Hotel. Quite possibly +your son has not yet committed any crime, whatever. If he succeeds in +making a huge fortune and in keeping it, he will not commit any crime. +Rich men never do. They can't. They never even commit murder. There is +no reason why they should. Whatever they do, it is no worse than an +idiosyncrasy. Now tell me what our son talked about." + +"Well, he didn't talk much. He--he wasn't expecting me." + +"Did he ask after me?" + +"I told him about you. He asked about the car." + +"He didn't ask after me, but he asked after the car. Nothing very +original there, is there? Any son would behave like that. He must do +better than that if he doesn't mean to end as an adventurer. I must go +and see him, and offer him, very respectfully, some advice." + +"Arthur, I insist that he shall come here. It is not proper that you +should go running after _him_." + +"Pooh, my dear! I'm rich enough myself to run after him without being +accused of snobbishness or lion-hunting or anything of that kind." + +"Oh! Arthur!" sobbed Eve. "Don't you think you're been funny quite long +enough?" She then openly wept. + +The singular Mr. Prohack was apparently not in the least moved by his +wife's tears. He and she alone in the house were out of bed; there was +no chance of their being disturbed. He did not worry about his +adventurous son. He did not worry about the possibility of Oswald Morfey +having a design to convert his daughter into Mrs. Oswald Morfey. He did +not worry about the fate of the speculation in which he had joined Sir +Paul Spinner. Nor did he worry about the malady called traumatic +neurasthenia. As for himself he fancied that he had not for years felt +better than he felt at that moment. He was aware of the most delicious +sensation of sharing a perfect nocturnal solitude with his wife. He drew +her towards him until her acquiescent head lay against his waistcoat. He +held her body in his arms, and came deliberately to the conclusion that +to be alive was excellent. + +Eve's body was as yielding as that of a young girl. To Mr. Prohack, who +of course was the dupe of an illusion, it had an absolutely enchanting +girlishness. She sobbed and she sobbed, and Mr. Prohack let her sob. He +loosed the grip of his arms a little, so that her face, free of his +waistcoat, was turned upwards in the direction of the ceiling; and then +he very caressingly wiped her eyes with his own handkerchief. He gave an +elaborate care to the wiping of her eyes. For some minutes it was a +Sisyphean labour, for what he did she immediately undid; but after a +time the sobs grew less frequent, and at length they ceased; only her +lips trembled at intervals. + +Mr. Prohack said ingratiatingly: + +"And whose fault is it if I'm funny? Answer, you witch." + +"I don't know," Eve murmured tremblingly and not quite articulately. + +"It's your fault. Do you know that you gave me the fright of my life +to-night, going out without saying where you were going to? Do you know +that you put me into such a state that I've been telephoning to +police-stations to find out whether there'd been any street accidents +happening to a woman of your description? I was so upset that I daren't +even go upstairs and call Sissie." + +"You said you'd only been back five minutes when I came," Eve observed +in a somewhat firmer voice. + +"I did," said Mr. Prohack. "But that was neither more nor less than a +downright lie. You see I was in such a state that I had to pretend, to +both you and myself, that things aren't what they are.... And then, +without the slightest warning, you suddenly arrive without a scratch on +you. You aren't hurt. You aren't even dead. It's a scandalous shame that +a woman should be able, by merely arriving in a taxi, to put a sensible +man into such a paroxysm of satisfaction as you put me into a while ago. +It's not right. It's not fair. Then you try to depress me with bluggy +stories of your son's horrible opulence, and when you discover you can't +depress me you burst into tears and accuse me of being funny. What did +you expect me to be? Did you expect me to groan because you aren't lying +dead in a mortuary? If I'm funny, you are at liberty to attribute it to +hysteria, the hysteria of joy. But I wish you to understand that these +extreme revulsions of feeling which you impose on me are very dangerous +for a plain man who is undergoing a rest-cure." + +Eve raised her arms about Mr. Prohack's neck, lifted herself up by them, +and silently kissed him. Then she sank back to her former position. + +"I've been a great trial to you lately, haven't I?" she breathed. + +"Not more so than usual," he answered. "You know you always abuse your +power." + +"But I _have_ been queer?" + +"Well," judicially, "perhaps you have. Perhaps five per cent or so above +your average of queerness." + +"Didn't the doctor say what I'd got was traumatic neurasthenia?" + +"That or something equally absurd." + +"Well, I haven't got it any more. I'm cured. You'll see." + +Just then the dining-room clock entered upon its lengthy business of +chiming the hour of midnight. And as it faintly chimed Mr. Prohack, +supporting his wife, had a surpassing conviction of the beauty of +existence and in particular of his own good fortune--though the matter +of his inheritance never once entered his mind. He gazed down at Eve's +ingenuous features, and saw in them the fastidious fineness which had +caused her to recoil so sensitively from her son's display at the Grand +Babylon. Yes, women had a spiritual beauty to which men could not +pretend. + +"Arthur," said she, "I never told you that you'd forgotten to wind up +that clock on Sunday night. It stopped this evening while you were out, +and I had to wind it and I only guessed what the time was." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE PRACTICE OF IDLENESS + +I + + +At ten minutes to eleven the next morning Mr. Prohack rushed across the +pavement, and sprang head-first into the original Eagle (now duly +repaired) with the velocity and agility of a man long accustomed to the +fact that seconds are more precious than six-pences and minutes than +banknotes. And Carthew slammed the door on him like a conjuror +performing the final act of a trick before an audience of three thousand +people. + +Mr. Prohack was late. He was late on this the first full day of his +career as a consciously and scientifically idle man. Carthew knew that +his employer was late; and certainly the people in his house knew that +he was late. Mr. Prohack's breakfast in bed had been late, which meant +that his digestive and reposeful hour of newspaper reading was thrown +forward. And then he had actually been kept out of his own bathroom, +through the joint fault of Sissie and her mother, who had apparently +determined to celebrate Sissie's definite release from the dance-studio, +and Mrs. Prohack's astonishing recovery from traumatic neurasthenia, by +a thorough visitation and reorganisation of the house and household. +Those two, re-established in each other's affection, had been holding an +inquisition in the bathroom, of all rooms, at the very moment when Mr. +Prohack needed the same, with the consequence that he found the bath +empty instead of full, and the geyser not even lighted. Yet they well +knew that he had a highly important appointment at the tailor's at ten +forty-five, followed by other just as highly important appointments! The +worst of it was that he could not take their crime seriously because he +was on such intimate and conspiratorial terms with each of them +separately. On the previous evening he had exchanged wonderful and +rather dangerous confidences with his daughter, and, further on in the +night he and her mother had decided that the latter's fantastic +excursion to the Grand Babylon Hotel should remain a secret. And Sissie, +as much as her mother, had taken advantage of his helplessness in the +usual unscrupulous feminine manner. They went so far as to smile +quasi-maternally at his boyish busy-ness. + +Now no sooner had Carthew slammed the door of the Eagle and got into the +driving-seat than a young woman, a perfect stranger to Mr. Prohack, +appeared, and through the open window asked in a piteous childlike voice +if Mr. Prohack was indeed Mr. Prohack, and, having been informed that +this was so, expressed the desire to speak with him. Mr. Prohack was +beside himself with annoyance and thwarted energy. Was the entire +universe uniting against the execution of his programme? + +"I have a most important appointment," said he, raising his hat and +achieving politeness by an enormous effort, "and if your business is +urgent you'd better get into the car. I'm going to Conduit Street." + +She slipped into the car like a snake, and Carthew, beautifully unaware +that he had two passengers, simultaneously drove off. + +If a snake, she was a very slim, blushing and confused snake,--short, +too, for a python. And she had a turned-up nose, and was quite young. +Her scales were stylish. And, although certainly abashed, apprehensive +and timorous, she yet had, about her delicate mouth, the signs of +terrible determination, of ruthlessness, of an ambition that nothing +could thwart. Mr. Prohack might have been alarmed, but fortunately he +was getting used to driving in closed cars with young women, and so +could keep his nerve. Moreover, he enjoyed these experiences, being a +man of simple tastes and not too analytical of good fortune when it came +his way. + +"It's very good of you to see me like this," said the girl, in the voice +of a rapid brook with a pebbly bed. "My name is Winstock, and I've +called about the car." + +"The car? What car?" + +"The motor-car accident at Putney, you know." + +"Ah!" + +"Yes." + +"Just so. Just so. You are the owner-driver of the other car." + +"Yes." + +"I think you ought to have seen my wife. It is really she who is the +owner of this car. As you are aware, I wasn't in the accident myself, +and I don't know anything about it. Besides, it's entirely in the hands +of the insurance company and the solicitors. You are employing a +solicitor, aren't you?" + +"Oh, yes." + +"Then I suppose it's by his advice that you've come to see me." + +"Well, I'm afraid it isn't." + +"What!" cried Mr. Prohack. "If it isn't by his advice you may well be +afraid. Do you know you've done a most improper thing? Most improper. I +can't possibly listen to you. _You_ may go behind your lawyer's back. +But I can't. And also there's the insurance company." Mr. Prohack lifted +the rug which had fallen away from her short skirts. + +"I think solicitors and companies and things are so silly," said Miss +Winstock, whose eyes had not moved from the floor-mat. "Thank you." The +'thank you' was in respect to the rug. + +"So they are," Mr. Prohack agreed. + +"That was why I thought it would be better to come straight to you." For +the first time she glanced at him; a baffling glance, a glance that +somehow had the effect of transferring some of the apprehension in her +own breast to that of Mr. Prohack. + +"Well," said he, in a departmental tone recalling Whitehall. "Will you +kindly say what you have to say?" + +"Can I speak confidentially?" + +Mr. Prohack raised his hands and laughed in what he hoped was a sardonic +manner. + +"I give you young women up," he murmured. "Yes, I give you up. You're my +enemy. We're at law. And you want to talk confidentially! How can I tell +whether I can let you talk confidentially until I've heard what you're +going to say?" + +"Oh! I was only going to say that I'm not really the owner-driver of the +car. I'm personal secretary to Mr. Carrel Quire, and it's really his +car. You see he has three cars, but as there's been such a fuss about +waste lately and he's so prominent in the anti-squandermania campaign, +he prefers to keep only one car in his own name." + +"You don't mean to sit there and tell me you're talking about the +Secretary for Foreign Affairs!" + +"Yes, of course. Who else? You know he's on the continent at present. He +wouldn't take me with him because he wanted to create an effect of +austerity in Paris--that's what he said; and I must get this accident +affair settled up before he comes back, or he _may_ dismiss me. I don't +think he will, because I'm a cousin of the late Lady Queenie +Paulle--that's how I got the place--but he may. And then where should I +be? I was told you were so kind and nice--that's why I came." + +"I am not kind and I am not nice," remarked Mr. Prohack, in an acid +tone, but laughing to himself because the celebrated young statesman, +Mr. Carrel Quire (bald at thirty-five) was precisely one of the +ministers who, during the war, had defied and trampled upon the +Treasury. He now almost demoniacally contemplated the ruin of Mr. Carrel +Quire. + +"You have made a serious mistake in coming to me. Unfortunately you +cannot undo it. Be good enough to understand that you have not been +talking confidentially." + +Miss Winstock ought to have been intimidated and paralysed by the +menacing manner of the former Terror of the Departments. But she was +not. + +"Please, please, Mr. Prohack," she said calmly, "don't talk in that +strain. I distinctly told you I was talking confidentially, and I'm sure +I can rely on you--unless all that I've heard about you is untrue; which +it can't be. I only want matters to be settled quietly, and when Mr. +Quire returns he will pay anything that has to be paid--if it isn't too +much." + +"My chauffeur asserts that you have told a most naughty untruth about +the accident. You say that he ran into you, whereas the fact is that he +was nearly standing still while you were going too fast and you skidded +badly into him off the tramlines. And he's found witnesses to prove what +he says." + +"I may have been a little mistaken," Miss Winstock admitted with light +sadness. "I won't say I wasn't. You know how you are in an accident." + +"I've never been in an accident in my life," Mr. Prohack objected. + +"If you had, you'd sympathise with me." + +At this moment the Eagle drew up at the desired destination in Conduit +Street. Mr. Prohack looked at his watch. + +"I'm sorry to seem inhospitable," he said, "but my appointment is +extremely important. I cannot wait." + +"Can _I_ wait?" Miss Winstock suggested. "I'm quite used to waiting for +Mr. Carrel Quire. If I might wait in the car till you came out.... You +see I want to come to an understanding." + +"I don't know how long I shall be." + +"That doesn't matter, truly. I haven't got anything else in the world to +do, as Mr. Carrel Quire is away." + +Mr. Prohack left Miss Winstock in the car. + +The establishment into which Mr. Prohack disappeared was that of his +son's tailors. He slipped into it with awe, not wholly because the +tailors were his son's tailors, but in part because they were tailors to +various august or once-august personages throughout Europe. Till that +day Mr. Prohack had bought his clothes from an insignificant though +traditional tailor in Maddox Street, to whom he had been taken as a boy +by his own father. And he had ordered his clothes hastily, negligently, +anyhow, in intervals snatched from meal-hours or on the way from one +more important appointment to another more important appointment. Indeed +he had thought no more of ordering a suit than of ordering a whiskey and +soda. Nay, he had on one occasion fallen incredibly low, and his memory +held the horrid secret for ever,--on one occasion he had actually bought +a ready-made suit. It had fitted him, for he was slimmish and of a good +stock size, but he had told nobody, not even his wife, of this shocking +defection from the code of true British gentlemanliness,--and he had +never repeated the crime; the secret would die with him. And now he was +devoting the top of the morning to the commandment of a suit. The affair +was his chief business, and he had come to it in a great car whose six +cylinders were working harmoniously for nothing else, and with the aid +of an intelligent and experienced and expert human being whose sole +object in life that morning was to preside over Mr. Prohack's locomotion +to and from the tailors'! + +Mr. Prohack perceived that he was only beginning to comprehend the +wonder of existence. The adepts at the tailors', however, seemed to see +nothing wonderful in the matter. They showed no surprise that he had +written to make an appointment with a particular adept named +Melchizidek, who had been casually mentioned weeks earlier by Charles as +the one man in London who really comprehended waistcoats. They took it +as a matter of course that Mr. Prohack had naught else to do with the +top of the morning but order clothes, and that while he did so he should +keep a mature man and a vast and elaborate machine waiting for him in +the street outside. And Mr. Melchizidek's manner alone convinced Mr. +Prohack that what he had told his family, and that what he had told Miss +Winstock in the car, was strictly true and not the invention of his +fancy--namely that the appointment was genuinely of high importance. + +Mr. Melchizidek possessed the strange gift of condescending majestically +to Mr. Prohack while licking his boots. He listened to Mr. Prohack as to +an autocrat while giving Mr. Prohack to understand that Mr. Prohack knew +not the first elements of sartorial elegance. At intervals he gazed +abstractedly at the gold framed and crowned portraits that hung on the +walls and at the inscriptions similarly framed and crowned and hung, and +it was home in upon Mr. Prohack that the inscriptions in actual practice +referred to Mr. Melchizidek, and that this same Melchizidek, fawning +and masterful, had seen monarchs in their shirt sleeves and spoken to +princes with pins in his mouth, and made marks in white chalk between +the shoulder-blades of grand-dukes; and that revolutions and cataclysms +were nothing to Mr. Melchizidek. + +When Mr. Melchizidek had decided by hypnotic suggestion and magic power +what Mr. Prohack desired in the way of stuffs and patterns, he led Mr. +Prohack mysteriously to a small chamber, and a scribe followed them +carrying pencil and paper, and Mr. Prohack removed, with assistance, his +shabby coat and his waistcoat, and Mr. Melchizidek measured him in +unexampled detail and precision, and the scribe, writing, intoned aloud +all Mr. Prohack's dimensions. And all the time Mr. Prohack was asking in +his heart: "How much will these clothes cost?" And he, once the Terror +of the departments, who would have held up the war to satisfy his +official inquisitiveness on a question of price,--he dared not ask how +much the clothes would cost. He felt that in that unique establishment +money was simply not mentioned,--it could never be more than the subject +of formal and stately correspondence. + +During the latter part of the operation Mr. Prohack heard, outside in +the shop, the sharp sounds of an imperial and decisive voice, and he was +thereby well-nigh thunderstruck. And even Mr. Melchizidek seemed to be +similarly affected by the voice,--so much so that the intimate of +sovereigns unaffectedly hastened the business of enduing Mr. Prohack +into the shameful waistcoat and coat, and then, with a gesture of +apology, passed out of the cubicle, leaving Mr. Prohack with the +attendant scribe. + +Mr. Prohack, pricked by a fearful curiosity, followed Mr. Melchizidek; +and the voice was saying: + +"Oh! You're there, Melchizidek. Just come and look at this crease." + +Mr. Melchizidek, pained, moved forward. Three acolytes were already +standing in shocked silence round about a young man who stretched forth +one leg so that all might see. + +"I ask you," the young man proceeded, "is it an inch out or isn't it? +And how many times have I tried these things on? I'm a busy man, and +here I have to waste my time coming here again and again to get a thing +right that ought to have been right the first time. And you call +yourselves the first tailors in Europe.... Correct me if I'm inaccurate +in any of my statements." + +Mr. Melchizidek, who unlike an Englishman knew when he was beaten, said +in a solemn bass: + +"When can I send for them, sir?" + +"You can send for them this afternoon at the Grand Babylon, and be sure +that I have them back to-morrow night." + +"Certainly, sir. It's only fair to ourselves, sir, to state that we have +a great deal of trouble with our workmen in these days." + +"No doubt. And I have a great deal of trouble to find cash in these +days, but I don't pay your bills with bad money, I think." + +A discreet sycophantic smile from the group at this devastating +witticism! + +Mr. Prohack cautiously approached; the moment had awkwardness, but Mr. +Prohack owed it to himself to behave with all presence of mind. + +"Hullo, Charlie!" said he casually. + +"Hello, dad! How are you?" And Charlie, wearing the very suit in which +he had left home for Glasgow, shook hands boyishly. + +Looking into his firm, confident eyes, Mr. Prohack realised, perhaps for +the first time, that the fruit of his loins was no common boy. The mere +fact that as an out-of-work ex-officer, precariously making a bit in +motor-bicycle deals, he had dared to go to Melchizidek's firm for +clothes, and that he was now daring to affront Melchizidek,--this sole +fact separated him from the ruck of sons. + +"I warn you, dad, that if you're ordering clothes here you're ordering +trouble." + +Mr. Melchizidek's interjected remarks fitted to the occasion. The group +dissipated. The males of the Prohack family could say nothing +interesting to each other in such a situation. They could only pretend +that their relations were purely normal; which they did quite well. + +"I say, dad, I'm awfully busy this morning. I can't stop now. I've +telephoned the mater and she's coming to the Grand Babylon for +lunch--one thirty. Sis too, I think. Do come. You haven't got anything +else to do." The boy murmured all this. + +"Oh! Haven't I! I'm just as busy as you are, and more." + +However, Mr. Prohack accepted the invitation. Charlie went off in haste. +Mr. Prohack arrived on the pavement in time to see him departing in an +open semi-racing car driven by a mature, handsome and elegant woman, +with a chauffeur sitting behind. Mr. Prohack's mind was one immense +interrogation concerning his son. He had seen him, spoken with him, +and--owing to the peculiar circumstances--learnt nothing whatever. +Indeed, the mystery of Charlie was deepened. Had Charles hurried away in +order to hide the mature handsome lady from his father?... Mr. Prohack +might have moralised, but he suddenly remembered that he had a lady in +his own car, and that the disparity between their ages was no less than +the disparity between the ages of the occupants of the car in which +Charles had fled. + + +III + +Turning to his own car, he observed with a momentary astonishment that +Carthew, the chauffeur, leaning a little nonchalantly through the open +off-window of the vehicle, was engaged in conversation with Miss +Winstock. The astonishment passed when he reflected that as these two +had been in the enforced intimacy of an accident together they were +necessarily on some kind of speaking terms. Before Carthew had noticed +Mr. Prohack, Mr. Prohack noticed that Carthew's attitude to Miss +Winstock showed a certain tolerant condescension, while Miss Winstock's +girlish gestures were of a subtly appealing nature. Then in an instant +Carthew, the easy male tolerator of inaccurate but charming young women, +disappeared from the window--disappeared indeed, entirely from the face +of the earth--and a perfectly non-human, impassive automaton emerged +from behind the back of the car and stood attentive at the door, holding +the handle thereof. Mr. Prohack, with a gift of dissimulation equal to +Carthew's own, gave him an address in Bond Street. + +"I have another very urgent appointment," said Mr. Prohack to Miss +Winstock as he sat down beside her. And he took his diary from his +pocket and gazed at it intently, frowning, though there was nothing +whatever on its page except the printed information that the previous +Sunday was the twenty-fourth after Trinity, and a warning: "If you have +omitted to order your new diary it would be well to do so NOW to prevent +disappointment." + +"It's awfully good of you to have me here," said Miss Winstock. + +"It is," Mr. Prohack admitted. "And so far as I can see you've done +nothing to deserve it. You were very wrong to get chatting with my +chauffeur, for example." + +"I felt that all the time. But he has such a powerful individuality." + +"He may have. But what I pay him for is to drive my car, not to put his +passengers into a semi-hypnotic state. Do you know why I am taking you +about like this?" + +"I hope it's because you are kind-hearted." + +"Not at all. Do you think I should do it if you were fifty, fat and a +fright? Of course I shouldn't. And no one knows that better than you. +I'm doing it because you're young and charming and slim and attractive +and smart. Though forty-six, I am still a man. The chief difference +between me and most other men is that I know and openly admit my +motives. That's what makes me so dangerous. You should beware of me. +Take note that I haven't asked you what you're been saying to Carthew. +Nor shall I ask him. Now what exactly do you want me to do?" + +"Only not to let the law case about the accident go any further." + +"And are you in a position to pay the insurance company for the damage +to my car?" + +"Oh! Mr. Carrel Quire will pay." + +"Are you sure? Are you quite sure that Mr. Carrel Quire is not spending +twice as much as his ministerial salary, that salary being the whole of +his financial resources except loans from millionaires who will accept +influence instead of interest? I won't enquire whether Mr. Carrel Quire +pays your salary regularly. If he does, it furnishes the only instance +of regularity in the whole of his gorgeous career. If our little affair +becomes public it might ruin Mr. Carrel Quire as a politician--at the +least it would set him back for ten years. And I am particularly anxious +to ruin Mr. Carrel Quire. In doing so I shall accomplish a patriotic +act." + +"Oh, Mr. Prohack!" + +"Yes. Mr. Carrel Quire may be--probably is--a delightful fellow, but he +is too full of brains, and he constitutes the gravest danger that has +threatened the British Empire for a hundred years. Hence it is my duty +to ruin him if I get the chance; and I've got the chance. I don't see +how he could survive the exposure of the simple fact that while +preaching anti-waste he is keeping motor-cars in the names of young +women." + +The car had stopped in front of a shop over whose door a pair of gilded +animals like nothing in zoology were leaping amiably at each other. Miss +Winstock began to search neurotically in a bag for a handkerchief. + +"This is the scene of my next appointment," Mr. Prohack continued. +"Would you prefer to leave me at once or will you wait again?" + +Miss Winstock hesitated. + +"You had better wait," Mr. Prohack decided. "You'll be crying in fifteen +seconds and your handkerchief is sadly inadequate to the crisis. Try a +little self-control, and don't let Carthew hypnotise you. I shan't be +surprised if you're gone when I come back." + +A commissionaire was now holding open the door of the car. + +"Carthew," said Mr. Prohack privily, after he had got out. "Oblige me +by imagining that during my absence the car is empty." + +Carthew quivered for a fraction of eternity, but was exceedingly quick +to recover. + +"Yes, sir." + +The shop was all waxed parquetry, silks, satins, pure linen and pure +wool, diversified by a few walking-sticks and a cuff link or so. Faced +by a judge-like middle-aged authority in a frock-coat, Mr. Prohack +suddenly lost the magisterial demeanour which he had exhibited to a +defenceless girl in the car. He comprehended in a flash that suits of +clothes were a detail in the existence of an idle man and that neckties +and similar supremacies alone mattered. + +"I want a necktie," he began gently. + +"Certainly, sir," said the judge. But the judge's eyes, fixed on Mr. +Prohack's neck, said: "I should just think you did." + +Life was enlarged to a bewildering, a maddening maze of neckties. Mr. +Prohack considered in his heart that one of the needs of the day was an +encyclopaedia of neckties. As he bought neckties he felt as foolish as a +woman buying cigars. Any idiot could buy a suit, but neckties baffled +the intelligence of the Terror of the departments, though he had worn +something in the nature of a necktie for forty years. The neckties which +he bought inspired him with fear--the fear lest he might lack the +courage to wear them. In a nightmare he saw himself putting them on in +his bedroom and proceeding downstairs to breakfast, and then, +panic-stricken, rushing back to the bedroom to change into one of his +old neckties. + +And when he had bought neckties he apprehended that neckties without +shirts were like butter without bread, and he bought shirts. And then he +surmised that shirts without collars would be indecent. And when he had +bought collars a still small voice told him that the logical foundation +of all things was socks, and that really he had been trying to build a +house from the fourth story downwards. Fortunately he had less +hesitation about the socks, for he could comfort himself with the +thought that socks did not jump to the eye as neckties did, and that by +constant care their violence might even be forever concealed from the +gaze of his household. He sighed with relief at the end of the sock +episode. But he had forgotten braces, as to which he surrendered +unconditionally to the frock-coated judge. He brooked the most +astounding braces, for none but Eve would see them, and he could +intimidate Eve. + +"Shall we make you a quarter of a dozen pairs to measure, sir?" + +This extraordinary question miraculously restored all Mr. Prohack's +vanished aplomb. That at the end of the greatest war in the history of +the earth, amid decapitated empires and cities of starvation, braces +should be made to measure,--this was too much for Mr. Prohack, who had +not dreamed that braces ever had been made to measure. It shocked him +back into sense. + +"_No!_" he said coldly, and soon afterwards left the shop. + +Miss Winstock, in the car, sat for the statue of wistful melancholy. + +"Heavens!" breathed Mr. Prohack to himself. "The little thing is taking +me seriously. With all her experience of the queer world, and all her +initiative and courage, she is taking me seriously!" He was touched; his +irony became sympathetic, and he thought: "How young the young are!" + +Her smile as he rejoined her had pathos in it. The totality of her was +delicious. + +"You cannot be all bad, Miss Winstock," said he to her, after +instructing the chauffeur, "because nobody is. You are undisciplined. +You do wild and rash things--you have already accomplished several this +morning. But you have righteous instincts, though not often enough. Of +course, with one word to the insurance company I could save you. The +difficulty is that I could not save you without saving Mr. Carrel Quire +also. And it would be very wrong of me to save Mr. Carrel Quire, for to +save him would be to jeopardise the future of the British Empire, +because unless he is scotched, that man's frantic egotism and ruthless +ambition will achieve political disaster for four hundred million human +beings. I should like to save you. But can I weigh you in the balance +against an Empire? Can I, I say?" + +"No," answered Miss Winstock weakly but sincerely. + +"That's just where you're wrong," said Mr. Prohack. "I can. And you are +shamefully ignorant of history. Never yet when empire, any empire, has +been weighed in the balance against a young and attractive woman has the +young woman failed to win! That is a dreadful fact, but men are thus +constituted. Had you been a hag, I should not have hesitated to do my +duty to my country. But as you are what you are, and sitting so +agreeably in my car, I will save you and let my country go." + +"Oh! Mr. Prohack, you are very kind--but every one told me you were." + +"No! I am a knave. Also there is a condition." + +"I will agree to anything." + +"You must leave Mr. Carrel Quire's service. That man is dangerous not +only to empires. The entire environment is the very worst decently +possible for a girl like you. Get away from it. If you don't undertake +to give him notice at once, and withdraw entirely from his set, then I +will ruin both you and him." + +"But I shall starve," cried Miss Winstock. "I shall never find another +place without influence, and I have no more influence." + +"Have the Winstocks no money?" + +"Not a penny." + +"And have the Paulles no money?" + +"None for me." + +"You are the ideal programme-girl in a theatre," said Mr. Prohack. "You +will never starve. Excuse me for a few minutes. I have another very +important appointment," he added, as the car stopped in Piccadilly. + +After a quarter of an hour spent in learning that suits were naught, +neckties were naught, shirts, collars, socks and even braces were +naught, but that hats alone made a man of fashion and idleness, Mr. +Prohack returned to Miss Winstock and announced: + +"I will engage you as my private secretary. I need one very badly +indeed. In fact I cannot understand how, with all my engagements, I have +been able to manage without one so long. Your chief duties will be to +keep on good terms with my wife and daughter, and not to fall in love +with my son. If you were not too deeply preoccupied with my chauffeur, +you may have noticed a young man who came out of the tailors' just +before I did. That was my son." + +"Oh!" exclaimed Miss Winstock, "the boy who drove off in Lady Massulam's +car?" + +"Was that Lady Massulam?" asked Mr. Prohack before he had had time to +recover from the immense effect of hearing the startling, almost +legendary name of Lady Massulam in connection with his son. + +"Of course," said Miss Winstock. "Didn't you know?" + +Mr. Prohack ignored her pertness. + +"Well," he proceeded, having now successfully concealed his emotion, +"after having dealt as I suggest with my wife and children, you will +deal with my affairs. You shall have the same salary as Mr. Carrel Quire +paid--or forgot to pay. Do you agree or not?" + +"I should love it," replied Miss Winstock with enthusiasm. + +"What is your Christian name?" + +"Mimi." + +"So it is. I remember now. Well, it won't do at all. Never mention it +again, please." + +When he had accompanied Mimi to a neighbouring post office and sent off +a suitable telegram of farewell to Mr. Carrel Quire in her name, Mr. +Prohack abandoned her till the morrow, and drove off quickly to pick up +his wife for the Grand Babylon lunch. + +"I am a perfect lunatic," said he to himself. "It must be the effect of +riches. However, I don't care." + +He meant that he didn't care about the conceivable consequences of +engaging Mimi Winstock as secretary. But what he did care about was the +conjuncture of Lady Massulam and Charlie. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +FURTHER IDLENESS + +I + + +Strange, inconceivable as it may appear to people of the great world and +readers of newspapers, Mr. Prohack, C.B., had never in his life before +been inside the Grand Babylon Hotel. Such may be the narrow and mean +existence forced by circumstances upon secretly powerful servants of the +Crown. He arrived late, owing to the intricate preparations of his wife +and daughter for Charlie's luncheon. These two were unsuccessfully +pretending not to be nervous, and their nervousness reacted upon Mr. +Prohack, who perceived with disgust that his gay and mischievous mood of +the morning was slipping away from him despite his efforts to retain it. +He knew now definitely that his health had taken the right turn, and yet +he could not prod the youthful Sissie as he had prodded the youthful +Mimi Winstock. Moreover Mimi was a secret which would have to be +divulged, and this secret not only weighed heavy within him, but seemed +disturbingly to counterbalance the secrets that Charlie was withholding. + +On the present occasion he saw little of the Grand Babylon, for as soon +as he mentioned his son's name to the nonchalant official behind the +enquiry counter the official changed like lightning into an obsequious +courtier, and Charles's family was put in charge of a hovering attendant +boy, who escorted it in a lift and along a mile of corridors, and +Charlie's family was kept waiting at a door until the voice of Charlie +permitted the boy to open the door. A rather large parlour set with a +table for five; a magnificent view from the window of a huge +white-bricked wall and scores of chimney pots and electric wires, and a +moving grey sky above! Charlie, too, was unsuccessfully pretending not +to be nervous. + +"Hullo, kid!" he greeted his sister. + +"Hullo yourself," responded Sissie. + +They shook hands. (They very rarely kissed. However, Charlie kissed his +mother. Even he would not have dared not to kiss her.) + +"Mater," said he, "let me introduce you to Lady Massulam." + +Lady Massulam had been standing in the window. She came forward with a +pleasant, restrained smile and made the acquaintance of Charlie's +family; but she was not talkative. Her presence, coming as a terrific +surprise to the ladies of the Prohack family, and as a fairly powerful +surprise to Mr. Prohack, completed the general constraint. Mrs. Prohack +indeed was somewhat intimidated by it. Mrs. Prohack's knowledge of Lady +Massulam was derived exclusively from _The Daily Picture_, where her +portrait was constantly appearing, on all sorts of pretexts, and where +she was described as a leader of London society. Mr. Prohack knew of her +as a woman credited with great feats of war-work, and also with a +certain real talent for organisation; further, he had heard that she had +a gift for high finance, and exercised it not without profit. As she +happened to be French by birth, no steady English person was seriously +upset by the fact that her matrimonial career was obscure, and as she +happened to be very rich everybody raised sceptical eyebrows at the +assertion that her husband (a knight) was dead; for _The Daily Picture_ +implanted daily in the minds of millions of readers the grand truth that +to the very rich nothing can happen simply. The whole _Daily Picture_ +world was aware that of late she had lived at the Grand Babylon Hotel in +permanence. That world would not have recognised her from her published +portraits, which were more historical than actual. Although +conspicuously anti-Victorian she had a Victorian beauty of the +impressive kind; she had it still. Her hair was of a dark lustrous brown +and showed no grey. In figure she was tall, and rather more than plump +and rather less than fat. Her perfect and perfectly worn clothes proved +that she knew just how to deal with herself. She would look forty in a +theatre, fifty in a garden, and sixty to her maid at dawn. + +This important person spoke, when she did speak, with a scarcely +perceptible French accent in a fine clear voice. But she spoke little +and said practically nothing: which was a shock to Marian Prohack, who +had imagined that in the circles graced by Lady Massulam conversation +varied from badinage to profundity and never halted. It was not that +Lady Massulam was tongue-tied, nor that she was impolite; it was merely +that with excellent calmness she did not talk. If anybody handed her a +subject, she just dropped it; the floor around her was strewn with +subjects. + +The lunch was dreadful, socially. It might have been better if Charlie's +family had not been tormented by the tremendous question: what had +Charlie to do with Lady Massulam? Already Charlie's situation was +sufficient of a mystery, without this arch-mystery being spread all over +it. And inexperienced Charlie was a poor host; as a host he was +positively pathetic, rivalling Lady Massulam in taciturnity. + +Sissie took to chaffing her brother, and after a time Charlie said +suddenly, with curtness: + +"Have you dropped that silly dance-scheme of yours, kid?" + +Sissie was obliged to admit that she had. + +"Then I tell you what you might do. You might come and live here with me +for a bit. I want a hostess, you know." + +"I will," said Sissie, straight. No consultation of parents! + +This brief episode overset Mrs. Prohack. The lunch worsened, to such a +point that Mr. Prohack began to grow light-hearted, and chaffed Charlie +in his turn. He found material for chaff in the large number of newly +bought books that were lying about the room. There was even the +_Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics_ in eleven volumes. Queer +possessions for a youth who at home had never read aught but the +periodical literature of automobilism! Could this be the influence of +Lady Massulam? Then the telephone bell rang, and it was like a signal of +salvation. Charlie sprang at the instrument. + +"For you," he said, indicating Lady Massulam, who rose. + +"Oh!" said she. "It's Ozzie." + +"Who's Ozzie?" Charlie demanded, without thought. + +"No doubt Oswald Morfey," said Mr. Prohack, scoring over his son. + +"He wants to see me. May I ask him to come up for coffee?" + +"Oh! Do!" said Sissie, also without thought. She then blushed. + +Mr. Prohack thought suspiciously and apprehensively: + +"I bet anything he's found out that my daughter is here." + +Ozzie transformed the final act of the luncheon. An adept +conversationalist, he created conversationalists on every side. Mrs. +Prohack liked him at once. Sissie could not keep her eyes off him. +Charlie was impressed by him. Lady Massulam treated him with the +familiarity of an intimate. Mr. Prohack alone was sinister in attitude. +Ozzie brought the great world into the room with him. In his simpering +voice he was ready to discuss all the phenomena of the universe; but +after ten minutes Mr. Prohack noticed that the fellow had one sole +subject on his mind. Namely, a theatrical first-night, fixed for that +very evening; a first-night of the highest eminence; one of Mr. Asprey +Chown's first-nights, boomed by the marvellous showmanship of Mr. Asprey +Chown into a mighty event. The competition for seats was prodigious, but +of course Lady Massulam had obtained her usual stall. + +"What a pity we can't go!" said Sissie simply. + +"Will you all come in my box?" astonishingly replied Mr. Oswald Morfey, +embracing in his weak glance the entire Prohack family. + +"The fellow came here on purpose to fix this," said Mr. Prohack to +himself as the matter was being effusively clinched. + +"I must go," said he aloud, looking at his watch. "I have a very +important appointment." + +"But I wanted to have a word with you, dad," said Charlie, in quite a +new tone across the table. + +"Possibly," answered the superior ironic father in Mr. Prohack, who +besides being sick of the luncheon party was determined that nothing +should interfere with his Median and Persian programme. "Possibly. But +that will be for another time." + +"Well, to-night then," said Charlie, dashed somewhat. + +"Perhaps," said Mr. Prohack. Yet he was burning to hear his son's word. + + + + +II + + +However, Mr. Prohack did not succeed in loosing himself from the +embraces of the Grand Babylon Hotel for another thirty minutes. He +offered to abandon the car, to abandon everything to his wife and +daughter, and to reach his next important appointment by the common +methods of conveyance employed by common people; but the ladies would +permit no such thing; they announced their firm intention of personally +escorting him to his destination. The party seemed to be unable to break +up. There was a considerable confabulation between Eve and Lady Massulam +at the entrance to the lift. + +Mr. Prohack noticed anew that Eve's attitude to Lady Massulam was still +a flattering one. Indeed Eve showed that in her opinion the meeting with +so great a personage as Lady Massulam was not quite an ordinary episode +in her simple existence. And Lady Massulam was now talking with a free +flow to Eve. As soon as the colloquy had closed and Eve had at length +joined her simmering husband in the lift, Charlie must have a private +chat with Lady Massulam, apart, mysterious, concerning their affairs, +whatever their affairs might be! In spite of himself, Mr. Prohack was +impressed by the demeanour of the young man and the mature blossom of +womanhood to each other. They exhibited a mutual trust; they understood +each other; they liked each other. She was more than old enough to be +his mamma, and yet as she talked to him she somehow became a dignified +girl. Mr. Prohack was disturbed in a manner which he would never have +admitted,--how absurd to fancy that Lady Massulam had in her impressive +head a notion of marrying the boy! Still, such unions had occurred!--but +he was pleasantly touched, too. + +Then Oswald Morfey and Sissie made another couple, very different, more +animated, and equally touching. Ozzie seemed to grow more likeable, and +less despicable, under the honest and frankly ardent gaze of Miss +Prohack; and Mr. Prohack was again visited by a doubt whether the fellow +was after all the perfectly silly ass which he was reputed to be. + +In the lift, Lady Massulam having offered her final adieux, Ozzie opened +up to Mrs. Prohack the subject of an organisation called the United +League of all the Arts. Mr. Prohack would not listen to this. He hated +leagues, and especially leagues of arts. He knew in the marrow of his +spine that they were preposterous; but Mrs. Prohack and Sissie listened +with unfeigned eagerness to the wonderful tale of the future of the +United League of all the Arts. And when, emerging from the lift, Mr. +Prohack strolled impatiently on ahead, the three stood calmly moveless +to converse, until Mr. Prohack had to stroll impatiently back again. As +for Charlie, he stood by himself; there was leisure for the desired word +with his father, but Mr. Prohack had bluntly postponed that, and thus +the leisure was wasted. + +Without consulting Mr. Prohack's wishes, Ozzie drew the ladies towards +the great lounge, and Mr. Prohack at a distance unwillingly after them. +In the lounge so abundantly enlarged and enriched since the days of the +celebrated Felix Babylon, the founder of the hotel, post-lunch coffee +was merging into afternoon tea. The number of idle persons in the world, +and the number of busy persons who ministered to them, and the number of +artistic persons who played voluptuous music to their idleness, struck +Mr. Prohack as merely prodigious. He had not dreamed that idleness on so +grandiose a scale flourished in the city which to him had always been a +city of hard work and limited meal-hours. He saw that he had a great +deal to learn before he could hope to be as skilled in idleness as the +lowest of these experts in the lounge. He tapped his foot warningly. No +effect on his women. He tapped more loudly, as the hatred of being in a +hurry took possession of him. Eve looked round with a delightful +placatory smile which conjured an answering smile into the face of her +husband. + +He tried to be irritated after smiling, and advancing said in a would-be +fierce tone: + +"If this lunch lasts much longer I shall barely have time to dress for +dinner." + +But the effort was a failure--so complete that Sissie laughed at him. + +He had expected that in the car his women would relate to him the +sayings and doings of Ozzie Morfey in relation to the United League of +all the Arts. But they said not a syllable on the matter. He knew they +were hiding something formidable from him. He might have put a question, +but he was too proud to do so. Further, he despised them because they +essayed to discuss Lady Massulam impartially, as though she was just a +plain body, or nobody at all. A nauseating pretence on their part. + +Crossing a street, the car was held up by a procession of unemployed, +with guardian policemen, a band consisting chiefly of drums, and a +number of collarless powerful young men who shook white boxes of coppers +menacingly in the faces of passers-by. + +"Instead of encouraging them, the police ought to forbid these +processions of unemployed," said Eve gravely. "They're becoming a +perfect nuisance." + +"Why!" said Mr. Prohack, "this car of yours is a procession of +unemployed." + +This sardonic pleasantry pleased Mr. Prohack as much as it displeased +Mrs. Prohack. It seemed to alleviate his various worries, and the +process of alleviation went further when he remembered that, though he +would be late for his important appointment, he had really lost no time +because Dr. Veiga had forbidden him to keep this particular appointment +earlier than two full hours after a meal. + +"Don't take cold, darling," Eve urged with loving solicitude as he left +the car to enter the place of rendezvous. Sissie grinned at him +mockingly. They both knew that he had never kept such an appointment +before. + + + + +III + + +Solemnity, and hush, and antique menials stiff with tradition, +surrounded him. As soon as he had paid the entrance fee and deposited +all his valuables in a drawer of which the key was formally delivered to +him, he was motioned through a turnstile and requested to permit his +boots to be removed. He consented. White linens were then handed to him. + +"See here," he said with singular courage to the attendant. "I've never +been into one of these resorts before. Where do I go?" + +The attendant, who was a bare-footed mild child dressed in the Moorish +mode, reassuringly charged himself with Mr. Prohack's well-being, and +led the aspirant into a vast mosque with a roof of domes and little +glowing windows of coloured glass. In the midst of the mosque was a pale +green pool. White figures reclined in alcoves, round the walls. A +fountain played--the only orchestra. There was an eastern sound of hands +clapped, and another attendant glided across the carpeted warm floor. +Mr. Prohack understood that, in this immense seclusion, when you desired +no matter what you clapped your hands and were served. A beautiful peace +descended upon him and enveloped him; and he thought: "This is the most +wonderful place in the world. I have been waiting for this place for +twenty years." + +He yielded without reserve to its unique invitation. But some time +elapsed before he could recover from the unquestionable fact that he was +still within a quarter of a mile of Piccadilly Circus. + +From the explanations of the attendant and from the precise orders which +he had received from Dr. Veiga regarding the right method of conduct in +a Turkish bath, Mr. Prohack, being a man of quick mind, soon devised the +order of the ceremonial suited to his case, and began to put it into +execution. At first he found the ceremonial exacting. To part from all +his clothes and to parade through the mosque in attire of which the +principal items were a towel and the key of his valuables (adorning his +wrist) was ever so slightly an ordeal to one of his temperament and +upbringing. To sit unsheltered in blinding steam was not amusing, though +it was exciting. But the steam-chapel (as it might be called) of the +mosque was a delight compared to the second next chapel further on, +where the woodwork of the chairs was too hot to touch and where a +gigantic thermometer informed Mr. Prohack that with only another fifty +degrees of heat he would have achieved boiling point. + +He remembered that it was in this chamber he must drink iced tonic water +in quantity. He clapped his streaming hands clammily, and a tall, thin, +old man whose whole life must have been lived near boiling point, +immediately brought the draught. Short of the melting of the key of his +valuables everything possible happened in this extraordinary chamber. +But Mr. Prohack was determined to shrink from naught in the pursuit of +idleness. + +And at length, after he had sat in a less ardent chapel, and in still +another chapel been laid out on a marble slab as for an autopsy and, +defenceless, attacked for a quarter of an hour by a prize-fighter, and +had jumped desperately into the ice-cold lake and been dragged out and +smothered in thick folds of linen, and finally reposed horizontal in his +original alcove,--then he was conscious of an inward and profound +conviction that true, perfect, complete and supreme idleness had been +attained. He had no care in the world; he was cut off from the world; he +had no family; he existed beatifically and individually in a sublime and +satisfied egotism. + +But, such is the insecurity of human organisms and institutions, in less +than two minutes he grew aware of a strange sensation within him, which +sensation he ultimately diagnosed as hunger. To clap his hands was the +work of an instant. The oncoming attendant recited a catalogue of the +foods at his disposal; and the phrase "welsh rarebit" caught his +attention. He must have a welsh rarebit; he had not had a welsh rarebit +since he was at school. It magically arrived, on an oriental tray, set +on a low Moorish table. + +Eating the most wonderful food of his life and drinking tea, he looked +about and saw that two of the unoccupied sofas in his alcove were strewn +with garments; the owners of the garments had doubtlessly arrived during +his absence in the chapels and were now in the chapels themselves. He +lay back; earthly phenomena lost their hard reality.... + +When he woke up the mosque was a pit of darkness glimmering with sharp +points of electric light. He heard voices, the voices of two men who +occupied the neighbouring sofas. They were discoursing to each other +upon the difficulties of getting good whiskey in Afghanistan and in Rio +de Janeiro respectively. From whiskey they passed to even more +interesting matters, and Mr. Prohack, for the first time, began to learn +how the other half lives, to such an extent that he thought he had +better turn on the lamp over his head. Whereupon the conversation on the +neighbouring sofas curved off to the English weather in late autumn. + +Then Mr. Prohack noticed a deep snore. He perceived that the snore +originated in a considerable figure that, wrapped in white and showing +to the mosque only a venerable head, was seated in one of the huge +armchairs which were placed near the entrance to every alcove. It seemed +to him that he recognised the snore, and he was not mistaken, for he had +twice before heard it on Sunday afternoons at his chief club. The head +was the head of Sir Paul Spinner. Mr. Prohack recalled that old Paul was +a devotee of the Turkish bath. + +Now Mr. Prohack was exceedingly anxious to have speech with old Paul, +for he had heard very interesting rumours of Paul's activities. He +arose softly and approached the easy-chair and surveyed Sir Paul, who in +his then state looked less like a high financier and more like something +chipped off the roof of a cathedral than anything that Mr. Prohack had +ever seen. + +But Paul did not waken. A bather plunged into the pool with a tremendous +splash, but Paul did not waken. And Mr. Prohack felt that it would be +contrary to the spirit of the ritual of the mosque to waken him. But he +decided that if he waited all night he would wait until old Paul +regained consciousness. + +At that moment an attendant asked Mr. Prohack if he desired the +attentions of the barber, the chiropodist, or the manicurist. New vistas +opened out before Mr. Prohack. He said yes. After the barber, he padded +down the stairs from the barber's chapel (which was in the upper story +of the mosque), to observe if there was any change in old Paul's +condition. Paul still slept. Mr. Prohack did similarly after the +chiropodist. Paul still slept. Then again after the manicurist. Paul +still slept. Then a boyish attendant hurried forward and in a very +daring manner shook the monumental Paul by the shoulder. + +"You told me to wake you at six, Sir Paul." And Paul woke. + +"How simple," reflected Mr. Prohack, "are the problems of existence when +they are tackled with decision! Here have I been ineffectively trying to +waken the fellow for the past hour. But I forgot that he who wishes the +end must wish the means, and my regard for the ritual of the mosque was +absurd." + +He retired into the alcove to dress, keeping a watchful eye upon old +Paul. He felt himself to be in the highest state of physical efficiency. +From head to foot he was beyond criticism. When Mr. Prohack had got as +far as his waistcoat Sir Paul uprose ponderously from the easy-chair. + +"Hi, Paul!" + +The encounter between the two friends was one of those affectionate and +ecstatic affairs that can only happen in a Turkish Bath. + +"I've been trying to get you on the 'phone half the day," grunted Paul +Spinner, subsiding on to Mr. Prohack's sofa. + +"I've been out all day. Horribly busy," said Mr. Prohack. "What's wrong? +Anything wrong?" + +"Oh, no! Only I thought you'd like to know I've finished that deal." + +"I did hear some tall stories, but not a word from you, old thing." Mr. +Prohack tried to assume a tranquillity which he certainly did not feel. + +"Well, I never sing until I'm out of the wood. But this time I'm out +sooner than I expected." + +"Any luck?" + +"Yes. But I dictated a letter to you before I came here." + +"I suppose you can't remember what there was in it." + +"I shall get the securities next week." + +"What securities?" + +"Well, you'll receive"--here Paul dropped his voice--"three thousand +short of a quarter of a million in return for what you put in, my boy." + +"Then I'm worth over two hundred and fifty thousand pounds!" murmured +Mr. Prohack feebly. And he added, still more feebly: "Something will +have to be done about this soon." His heart was beating against his +waistcoat like an engine. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +END OF AN IDLE DAY + +I + + +It is remarkable that even in the most fashionable shopping +thoroughfares certain shops remain brilliantly open, exposing +plush-cushioned wares under a glare of electricity in the otherwise +darkened street, for an hour or so after all neighbouring establishments +have drawn down their blinds and put up their shutters. An interesting +point of psychology is involved in this phenomenon. + +On his way home from the paradise of the mosque, Mr. Prohack, afoot and +high-spirited, and energised by a long-forgotten sensation of physical +well-being, called in at such a shop, and, with the minimum of parley, +bought an article enclosed in a rich case. A swift and happy impulse on +his part! The object was destined for his wife, and his intention in +giving it was to help him to introduce more easily to her notice the +fact that he was now, or would shortly be, worth over quarter of a +million of money. For he was a strange, silly fellow, and just as he had +been conscious of a certain false shame at inheriting a hundred thousand +pounds, so now he was conscious of a certain false shame at having +increased his possessions to two hundred and fifty thousand pounds. + +The Eagle was waiting in front of Mr. Prohack's door; he wondered what +might be the latest evening project of his women, for he had not ordered +the car so early; perhaps the first night had been postponed; however, +he was too discreet, or too dignified, to make any enquiry from the +chauffeur; too indifferent to the projects of his beloved women. He +would be quite content to sit at home by himself, reflecting upon the +marvels of existence and searching among them for his soul. + +Within the house, servants were rushing about in an atmosphere of +excitement and bell-ringing. He divined that his wife and daughter were +dressing simultaneously for an important occasion--either the first +night or something else. In that feverish environment he forgot the +form of words which he had carefully prepared for the breaking to his +wife of the great financial news. Fortunately she gave him no chance to +blunder. + +"Oh, Arthur, Arthur!" she cried, sweetly reproachful, as with an assumed +jauntiness he entered the bedroom. "How late you are! I expected you +back an hour ago at least. Your things are laid out in the boudoir. You +haven't got a moment to spare. We're late as it is." She was by no means +dressed, and the bedroom looked as if it had been put to the sack; +nearly every drawer was ajar, and the two beds resembled a second-hand +shop. + +Mr. Prohack's self-protective instinct at once converted him into a +porcupine. An attempt was being made to force him into a hurry, and he +loathed hurry. + +"I'm not late," said he, "because I didn't say when I should return. It +won't take me more than a quarter of an hour to eat, and we've got heaps +of time for the theatre." + +"I'm giving a little dinner in the Grand Babylon restaurant," said Eve, +"and of course we must be there first. Sissie's arranged it for me on +the 'phone. It'll be much more amusing than dining here, and it saves +the servants." Yet the woman had recently begun to assert that the +servants hadn't enough to do! + +"Ah!" said Mr. Prohack, startled. "And who are the guests?" + +"Oh! Nobody! Only us and Charlie, of course, and Oswald Morfey, and +perhaps Lady Massulam. I've told Charlie to do the ordering." + +"I should have thought one meal per diem at the Grand Babylon would have +been sufficient." + +"But this is in the _restaurant_, don't I tell you? Oh, dear! That's +three times I've tried to do my hair. It's always the same when I want +it nice. Now do get along, Arthur!" + +"Strange!" said he with a sardonic blitheness. "Strange how it's always +my fault when your hair goes wrong!" And to himself he said: "All right! +All right! I just shan't inform you about that quarter of a million. +You've no leisure for details to-night, my girl." + +And he went into the boudoir. + +His blissful serenity was too well established to be overthrown by +anything short of a catastrophe. Nevertheless it did quiver slightly +under the shock of Eve's new tactics in life. This was the woman who, on +only the previous night, had been inveighing against the ostentation of +her son's career at the Grand Babylon. Now she seemed determined to +rival him in showiness, to be the partner of his alleged vulgarity. That +the immature Sissie should suddenly drop the ideals of the new poor for +the ideals of the new rich was excusable. But Eve! But that modest +embodiment of shy and quiet commonsense! She, who once had scorned the +world of _The Daily Picture_, was more and more disclosing a desire for +that world. And where now were her doubts about the righteousness of +Charlie's glittering deeds? And where was the ancient sagacity which +surely should have prevented her from being deceived by the +superficialities of an Oswald Morfey? Was she blindly helping to prepare +a disaster for her blind daughter? Was the explanation that she had +tasted of the fruit? The horrid thought crossed Mr. Prohack's mind: _All +women are alike._ He flung it out of his loyal mind, trying to +substitute: All women except Eve are alike. But it came back in its +original form.... Not that he cared, really. If Eve had transformed +herself into a Cleopatra his ridiculous passion for her would have +suffered no modification. + +Lying around the boudoir were various rectangular parcels, addressed in +flowing calligraphy to himself: the first harvest-loads of his busy +morning. The sight of them struck his conscience. Was not he, too, +following his wife on the path of the new rich? No! As ever he was +blameless. He was merely executing the prescription of his doctor, who +had expounded the necessity of scientific idleness and the curative +effect of fine clothes on health. True, he knew himself to be cured, but +if nature had chosen to cure him too quickly, that was not his fault.... +He heard his wife talking to Machin in the bedroom, and Machin talking +to his wife; and the servant's voice was as joyous and as worried as if +she herself, and not Eve, were about to give a little dinner at the +Grand Babylon. Queer! Queer! The phrase 'a quarter of a million' glinted +and flashed in the circumambient air. But it was almost a meaningless +phrase. He was like a sort of super-savage and could not count beyond a +hundred thousand. And, quite unphilosophical, he forgot that the ecstasy +produced by a hundred thousand had passed in a few days, and took for +granted that the ecstasy produced by two hundred and fifty thousand +would endure for ever. + +"Take that thing off, please," he commanded his wife when he returned to +the bedroom in full array. She was by no means complete, but she had +achieved some progress, and was trying the effect of her garnet +necklace. + +"But it's the best I've got," said she. + +"No, it isn't," he flatly contradicted her, and opened the case so newly +purchased. + +"Arthur!" she gasped, spellbound, entranced, enchanted. + +"That's my name." + +"Pearls! But--but--this must have cost thousands!" + +"And what if it did?" he enquired placidly, clasping the thing with much +delicacy round her neck. His own pleasure was intense, and yet he +severely blamed himself. Indeed he called himself a criminal. Scarcely +could he meet her gaze when she put her hands on his shoulders, after a +long gazing into the mirror. And when she kissed him and said with +frenzy that he was a dear and a madman, he privately agreed with her. +She ran to the door. + +"Where are you going?" + +"I must show Sissie." + +"Wait a moment, child. Do you know why I've bought that necklace? +Because the affair with Spinner has come off." He then gave her the +figures. + +She observed, not unduly moved: + +"But I knew _that_ would be all right." + +"How did you know?" + +"Because you're so clever. You always get the best of everybody." + +He realised afresh that she was a highly disturbing woman. She uttered +highly disturbing verdicts without thought and without warning. You +never knew what she would say. + +"I think," he remarked, calmly pretending that she had said something +quite obvious, "that it would be as well for us not to breathe one word +to anybody at all about this new windfall." + +She eagerly agreed. + +"But we must really begin to spend--I mean spend regularly." + +"Yes, of course," he admitted. + +"Otherwise it would be absurd, wouldn't it?" + +"Yes, of course." + +"Arthur." + +"Yes." + +"How much will it be--in income?" + +"Well, I'm not going in for any more flutters. No! I've done absolutely +with all speculating idiocies. Providence has watched over us. I take +the hint. Therefore my investments will all have to be entirely safe and +sound. No fancy rates of interest. I should say that by the time old +Paul's fixed up my investments we shall have a bit over four hundred +pounds a week coming in--if that's any guide to you." + +"Arthur, isn't it _wicked_!" + +She examined afresh the necklace. + +By the time they were all three in the car, Mr. Prohack had become +aware of the fact that in Sissie's view he ought to have bought two +necklaces while he was about it. + +Sissie's trunks were on the roof of the car. She had decided to take up +residence at the Grand Babylon that very night. The rapidity and the +uncontrollability of events made Mr. Prohack feel dizzy. + +"I hope you've brought some money, darling," said his wife. + + + + +II + + +"Lend me some money, will you?" murmured Mr. Prohack lightly to his +splendid son, after he had glanced at the bill for Eve's theatre dinner +at the Grand Babylon. Mr. Prohack had indeed brought some money with +him, but not enough. "Haven't got any," said Charlie, with equal +lightness. "Better give me the bill. I'll see to it." Whereupon Charlie +signed the bill, and handed the bowing waiter five ten shilling notes. + +"That's not enough," said Mr. Prohack. + +"Not enough for the tip. Well, it'll have to be. I never give more than +ten per cent." + +Mr. Prohack strove to conceal his own painful lack of worldliness. He +had imagined that he had in his pockets heaps of money to pay for a meal +for a handful of people. He was mistaken; that was all, and the incident +had no importance, for a few pounds more or less could not matter in the +least to a gentleman of his income. Yet he felt guilty of being a +waster. He could not accustom himself to the scale of expenditure. +Barely in the old days could he have earned in a week the price of the +repast consumed now in an hour. The vast apartment was packed with +people living at just that rate of expenditure and seeming to think +naught of it. "But do two wrongs make a right?" he privately demanded of +his soul. Then his soul came to the rescue with its robust commonsense +and replied: + +"Perhaps two wrongs don't make a right, but five hundred wrongs +positively must make a right." And he felt better. + +And suddenly he understood the true function of the magnificent +orchestra that dominated the scene. It was the function of a brass band +at a quack-dentist's booth in a fair,--to drown the cries of the victims +of the art of extraction. + +"Yes," he reflected, full of health and carelessness. "This is a truly +great life." + +The party went off in two automobiles, his own and Lady Massulam's. +Cars were fighting for room in front of the blazing facade of the +Metropolitan Theatre, across which rose in fire the title of the +entertainment, _Smack Your Face_, together with the names of Asprey +Chown and Eliza Fiddle. Car after car poured out a contingent of +glorious girls and men and was hustled off with ferocity by a row of +gigantic and implacable commissionaires. Mr. Oswald Morfey walked +straight into the building at the head of his guests. Highly expensive +persons were humbling themselves at the little window of the box office, +but Ozzie held his course, and officials performed obeisances which +stopped short only at falling flat on their faces at the sight of him. +Tickets were not for him. + +"This is a beautiful box," said Eve to him, amazed at the grandeur of +the receptacle into which they had been ushered. + +"It's Mr. Chown's own box." + +"Then isn't Mr. Chown to be here to-night?" + +"No! He went to Paris this morning for a rest. The acting manager will +telephone to him after each act. That's how he always does, you know." + +"When the cat's away the mice will play," thought Mr. Prohack +uncomfortably, with the naughty sensations of a mouse. The huge +auditorium was a marvellous scene of excited brilliance. As the stalls +filled up a burst of clapping came at intervals from the unseen pit. + +"What are they clapping for?" said the simple Eve, who, like Mr. +Prohack, had never been to a first-night before, to say nothing of such +a super-first-night as this. + +"Oh!" replied Ozzie negligently. "Some one they know by sight just come +into the stalls. The _chic_ thing in the pit is to recognise, and to +show by applause that you have recognised. The one that applauds the +oftenest wins the game in the pit." + +At those words and their tone Mr. Prohack looked at Ozzie with a new +eye, as who should be thinking: "Is Sissie right about this fellow after +all?" + +Sissie sat down modestly and calmly next to her mother. Nobody could +guess from her apparently ingenuous countenance that she knew that she, +and not the Terror of the departments and his wife, was the originating +cause of Mr. Morfey's grandiose hospitality. + +"I suppose the stalls are full of celebrities?" said Eve. + +"They're full of people who've paid twice the ordinary price for their +seats," answered Ozzie. + +"Who's that extraordinary old red-haired woman in the box opposite?" +Eve demanded. + +"That's Enid." + +"Enid?" + +"Yes. You know the Enid stove, don't you? All ladies know the Enid +stove. It's been a household word for forty years. That's the original +Enid. Her father invented the stove, and named it after her when she was +a girl. She never misses a first-night." + +"How extraordinary! Is she what you call a celebrity?" + +"Rather!" + +"Now," said Mr. Prohack. "Now, at last I understand the real meaning of +fame." + +"But that's Charlie down there!" exclaimed Eve, suddenly, pointing to +the stalls and then looking behind her to see if there was not another +Charlie in the box. + +"Yes," Ozzie agreed. "Lady Massulam had an extra stall, and as five's a +bit of a crowd in this box.... I thought he'd told you." + +"He had not," said Eve. + +The curtain went up, and this simple gesture on the part of the curtain +evoked enormous applause. The audience could not control the expression +of its delight. A young lady under a sunshade appeared; the mere fact of +her existence threw the audience into a new ecstasy. An old man with a +red nose appeared: similar demonstrations from the audience. When these +two had talked to each other and sung to each other, the applause was +tripled, and when the scene changed from Piccadilly Circus at 4 a.m. to +the interior of a Spanish palace inhabited by illustrious French actors +and actresses who proceeded to play an act of a tragedy by Corneille, +the applause was quintupled. At the end of the tragedy the applause was +decupled. Then the Spanish palace dissolved into an Abyssinian harem, +and Eliza Fiddle in Abyssinian costume was discovered lying upon two +thousand cushions of two thousand colours, and the audience rose at +Eliza and Eliza rose at the audience, and the resulting frenzy was the +sublimest frenzy that ever shook a theatre. The piece was stopped dead +for three minutes while the audience and Eliza protested a mutual and +unique passion. From this point onwards Mr. Prohack lost his head. He +ran to and fro in the bewildering glittering maze of the piece, seeking +for an explanation, for a sign-post, for a clue, for the slightest hint, +and found nothing. He had no alternative but to cling to Eliza Fiddle, +and he clung to her desperately. She was willing to be clung to. She +gave herself, not only to Mr. Prohack, but to every member of the +audience separately; she gave herself in the completeness of all her +manifestations. The audience was rich in the possession of the whole of +her individuality, which was a great deal. She sang, danced, chattered, +froze, melted, laughed, cried, flirted, kissed, kicked, cursed, and +turned somersaults with the fury of a dervish, the languor of an +odalisque, and the inexhaustibility of a hot-spring geyser.... And at +length Mr. Prohack grew aware of a feeling within himself that was at +war with the fresh, fine feeling of physical well-being. "I have never +seen a revue before," he said in secret. "Is it possible that I am +bored?" + + + + +III + + +"Would you care to go behind and be introduced to Miss Fiddle?" Ozzie +suggested at the interval after the curtain had been raised seventeen +times in response to frantic shoutings, cheerings, thumpings and +clappings, and the mighty tumult of exhilaration had subsided into a +happy buzz that arose from all the seats in the entire orange-tinted +brilliant auditorium. The ladies would not go; the ladies feared, they +said, to impose their company upon Miss Fiddle in the tremendous strain +of her activities. They spoke primly and decisively. It was true that +they feared; but their fear was based on consideration for themselves +rather than on consideration for Miss Fiddle. Ozzie was plainly snubbed. +He had offered a wonderful privilege, and it had been disdained. + +Mr. Prohack could not bear the spectacle of Ozzie's discomfiture. His +sad weakness for pleasing people overcame him, and, putting his hand +benevolently on the young man's shoulder, he said: + +"My dear fellow, personally I'm dying to go." + +They went by strangely narrow corridors and through iron doors across +the stage, whose shirt-sleeved, ragged population seemed to be behaving +as though the last trump had sounded, and so upstairs and along a broad +passage full of doors ajar from which issued whispers and exclamations +and transient visions of young women. From the star's dressing-room, at +the end, a crowd of all sorts and conditions of persons was being +pushed. Mr. Prohack trembled with an awful apprehension, and asked +himself vainly what in the name of commonsense he was doing there, and +prayed that Ozzie might be refused admission. The next moment he was +being introduced to a middle-aged woman in a middle-aged dressing-gown. +Her face was thickly caked with paint and powder, her eyes surrounded +with rings of deepest black, her finger-nails red. Mr. Prohack, not +without difficulty, recognised Eliza. A dresser stood on either side of +her. Blinding showers of electric light poured down upon her defenceless +but hardy form. She shook hands, but Mr. Prohack deemed that she ought +to bear a notice: "Danger. Visitors are requested not to touch." + +"So good of you to come round," she said, in her rich and powerful +voice, smiling with all her superb teeth. Mr. Prohack, entranced, gazed, +not as at a woman, but as at a public monument. Nevertheless he thought +that she was not a bad kind, and well suited for the rough work of the +world. + +"I hope you're all coming to my ball to-night," said she. Mr. Prohack +had never heard of any ball. In an instant she told him that she had +remarked two most charming ladies with him in the box--(inordinate +faculty of observation, mused Mr. Prohack)--and in another instant she +was selling him three two guinea tickets for a grand ball and rout in +aid of the West End Chorus Girls' Aid Association. Could he refuse, +perceiving so clearly as he did that within the public monument was +hiding a wistful creature, human like himself, human like his wife and +daughter? He could not. + +"Now you'll _come_?" said she. + +Mr. Prohack swore that he would come, his heart sinking as he realised +the consequence of his own foolish weakness. There was a knock at the +door. + +"Did you want me, Liza?" said a voice, and a fat gentleman, clothed with +resplendent correctness, stepped into the room. It was the +stage-manager, a god in his way. + +Eliza Fiddle became a cyclone. + +"I should think I did want you," she said passionately. "That's why I +sent for you, and next time I'll ask you to come quicker. I'm not going +to have that squint-eyed girl on the stage any more to-night. You know, +the one at the end of the row. Twice she spoiled my exit by getting in +the way. And you've got to throw her out, and take it from me. She does +it on purpose." + +"I can't throw her out without Mr. Chown's orders, and Mr. Chown's in +Paris." + +"Then you refuse?" + +A pause. + +"Yes." + +"Then I'm not going on again to-night, not if I know it. I'm not going +to be insulted in my own theatre." + +"It's not the girl's fault. You know they haven't got room to move." + +"I don't know anything about that and I don't care. All I know is that +I've finished with that squint-eyed woman, and you can choose right now +between her and me. And so that's that." + +Miss Fiddle's fragile complexion had approached to within six inches of +the stage-manager's broad and shiny features, and it had little +resemblance to any of the various faces which audiences associated with +the figure of Eliza Fiddle; it was a face voluptuously distorted by the +violence of emotion. As Miss Fiddle appeared to be under the impression +that she was alone with the stage-manager, Mr. Prohack rendered justice +to that impression by softly departing. Ozzie followed. The +stage-manager also followed. "Where are you going?" they heard Eliza's +voice behind them addressing the stage-manager. + +"I'm going to tell your under-study to get ready quick." + +An enormous altercation uprose, and faces peeped from every door in the +corridor; but Mr. Prohack stayed not. Ozzie led him to Mr. Asprey +Chown's private room. The Terror of the departments was shaken. Ozzie +laughed gently as he shut the door. + +"What will happen?" asked Mr. Prohack, affecting a gaiety he did not +feel. + +"What do you think will happen?" simpered Ozzie blandly, "having due +regard to the fact that Miss Fiddle has to choose between three hundred +and fifty pounds a week and a law-suit with Chown involving heavy +damages? I must say there's nobody like Blaggs for keeping these three +hundred and fifty pound a week individuals in order. Chown would sooner +lose forty of them than lose Blaggs. And Eliza knows it. By the way, +what do you think of the show?" + +"Will it succeed?" + +"You should see the advance booking. There's a thousand pounds in the +house to-night. Chown will be clearing fifteen hundred a week when he's +paid off his production." + +"Well, it's marvellous." + +"You don't mean the show?" + +"No. The profit." + +"I agree," simpered Ozzie. + +"I'm beginning to like this sizzling idiot," thought Mr. Prohack, as it +were regretfully. They left the imperial richness of Mr. Chown's private +room like brothers. + + + + +IV + + +When Mr. Prohack touched the handle of the door of the box, he felt as +though he were returning to civilisation; he felt less desolated by the +immediate past and by the prospect of the immediate future; he was +yearning for the society of mere women after his commerce with a star at +three hundred and fifty pounds a week. True, he badly wanted to examine +his soul and enquire into his philosophy of life, but he was prepared to +postpone that inquest until the society of mere women had had a +beneficial effect on him. + +Charlie, who had been paying a state visit to his mother and sister was +just leaving the box and the curtain was just going up. + +"Hullo, dad!" said the youth, "you're the very man I was looking for," +and he drew his father out into the corridor. "You've got two of the +finest ballroom dancers I ever saw," he added to Ozzie. + +"Haven't we!" Ozzie concurred, with faint enthusiasm. + +"But the rest of the show ..." Charlie went on, ruthless. "Well, if +Chown's shows were only equal to his showmanship...! Only they aren't!" + +Ozzie raised his eyebrows--a skilful gesture that at once defended his +employer and agreed with Charles. + +"By the way, dad, I've got a house for you. I've told the mater about it +and she's going to see it to-morrow morning." + +"A house!" Mr. Prohack exclaimed weakly, foreseeing new vistas of worry. +"I've got one. I can't live in two." + +"But this one's a _house_. You know about it, don't you, Morfey?" + +Ozzie gave a nod and a vague smile. + +"See here, dad! Come out here a minute." + +Ozzie discreetly entered the box and closed the door. + +"What is it?" asked Mr. Prohack. + +"It's this," Charlie replied, handing his parent a cheque. "I've +deducted what I paid for you to-night from what you lent me not long +since. I've calculated interest on the loan at ten per cent. You can get +ten practically anywhere in these days, worse luck." + +"But I don't want this, my boy," Mr. Prohack protested, holding the +cheque as he might have held a lady's handkerchief retrieved from the +ground. + +"Well, I'm quite sure I don't," said Charlie, a little stiffly. + +There was a pause. + +"As you please," said Mr. Prohack, putting the cheque--interest and +all--into his pocket. + +"Thanks," said Charlie. "Much obliged. You're a noble father, and I +shouldn't be a bit surprised if you've laid the foundation of my +fortunes. But of course you never know--in my business." + +"What _is_ your business?" Mr. Prohack asked timidly, almost +apologetically. He had made up his mind on the previous evening that he +would talk to Charlie as a father ought to talk to a son, that is to +say, like a cross-examining barrister and a moralist combined. He had +decided that it was more than his right--it was his duty to do so. But +now the right, if not the duty, seemed less plain, and he remembered +what he had said to Eve concerning the right attitude of parents to +children. And chiefly he remembered that Charlie was not in his debt. + +"I'm a buyer and seller. I buy for less than I sell for. That's how I +live." + +"It appears to be profitable." + +"Yes. I made over ten thousand in Glasgow, buying an option on an +engineering business--with your money--from people who wanted to get rid +of it, and then selling what I hadn't paid for to people in London who +wanted to get hold of an engineering business up there. Seems simple +enough, and the only reason everybody isn't doing it is that it isn't as +simple as it seems. At least, it's simple, but there's a knack in it. I +found out I'd got the knack through my little deals in motor-bikes and +things. As a matter of fact I didn't find out,--some one told me, and I +began to think.... But don't be alarmed if I go bust. I'm on to a much +bigger option now, in the City. Oh! Very much bigger. If it comes off +... you'll see. Lady Massulam is keen on it, and she's something of a +judge.... Any remarks?" + +Mr. Prohack looked cautiously at the young man, his own creation, to +whom, only the other day as it seemed, he had been in the habit of +giving one pound per school-term for pocket-money. And he was +affrighted--not by what he had created, but by the astounding +possibilities of fatherhood, which suddenly presented itself to him as a +most dangerous pursuit. + +"No remarks," said he, briefly. What remarks indeed could he offer? +Wildly guessing at the truth about his son, in that conversation with +Eve on the previous evening, he had happened to guess right. And his +sermon to Eve prevented now the issue of remarks. + +"Oh! Of course!" Charlie burst out. "You can't tell me anything I don't +know already. I'm a pirate. I'm not producing. All the money I make has +to be earned by somebody else before I get hold of it. I'm not doing +any good to my beautiful country. But I did try to find a useful job, +didn't I? My beautiful country wouldn't have me. It only wanted me in +the trenches. Well, it's got to have me. I'll jolly well make it pay +now. I'll squeeze every penny out of it. I'll teach it a lesson. And why +not? I shall only be shoving its own ideas down its throat. Supposing I +hadn't got this knack and I hadn't had _you_. I might have been wearing +all my ribbons and playing a barrel organ in Oxford Street to-day +instead of living at the Grand Babylon." + +"You're becoming quite eloquent in your old age," said Mr. Prohack, +tremulously jocular while looking with alarm into his paternal heart. +Was not he himself a pirate? Had not the hundred and fifty thousand that +was coming to him had to be earned by somebody else? Money did not make +itself. + +"Well," retorted Charlie, with a grim smile. "There's one thing to be +said for me. When I _do_ talk, I talk." + +"And so at last you've begun to read?" + +"I'm not going to be the ordinary millionaire. No fear! Make your mind +easy on that point. Besides, reading isn't so bad after all." + +"And what about that house you were speaking of? You aren't going to +plant any of your options on me." + +"We'll discuss that to-morrow. I must get back to my seat," said Charlie +firmly, moving away. "So long." + +"I say," Mr. Prohack summoned him to return. "I'm rather curious about +the methods of you millionaires. Just when did you sign that cheque for +me? You only lent me the money as we were leaving the hotel." + +"I made it out while I was talking to the mater and Sis in your box, of +course." + +"How simple are the acts of genius--after they're accomplished!" +observed Mr. Prohack. "Naturally you signed it in the box." + +As he rejoined his family he yawned, surprising himself. He began to +feel a mysterious fatigue. The effect of the Turkish bath, without +doubt! The remainder of the evening stretched out in front of him, +interminably tedious. The title of the play was misleading. He could not +smack his face. He wished to heaven he could.... And then, after the +play, the ball! Eliza might tell him to dance with her. She would be +quite capable of such a deed. And by universal convention her +suggestions were the equivalent of demands. Nobody ever could or would +refuse to dance with Eliza.... There she was, all her four limbs +superbly displayed, sweetly smiling with her enormous mouth, just as if +the relations between Blaggs and herself were those of Paul and +Virginia. The excited audience, in the professional phrase, was "eating" +her. + + + + +V + + +Mr. Prohack was really a most absurd person. _Smack Your Face_, when it +came to an end, towards midnight, had established itself as an authentic +enormous success; and because Mr. Prohack did not care for it, because +it bored him, because he found it vulgar and tedious and expensive, +because it tasted in his mouth like a dust-and-ashes sandwich, the +fellow actually felt sad; he felt even bitter. He hated to see the +fashionable and splendid audience unwilling to leave the theatre, +cheering one super-favourite, five arch-favourites and fifteen +favourites, and cheering them again and again, and sending the curtain +up and down and up and down time after time. He could not bear that what +he detested should be deliriously admired. He went so far as to form +views about the decadence of the theatre as an institution. Most of all +he was disgusted because his beloved Eve was not disgusted. Eve said +placidly that she did not think much of the affair, but that she had +thoroughly enjoyed it and wouldn't mind coming on the next night to see +it afresh. He said gloomily: + +"And I've been bringing you up for nearly twenty-five years." + +As for Sissie, she was quietly and sternly enthusiastic about a lot of +the dancing. She announced her judgment as an expert, and Charlie agreed +with her, and there was no appeal, and Mr. Prohack had the air of an +ignorant outsider whose opinions were negligible. Further, he was absurd +in that, though he assuredly had no desire whatever to go to the dance, +he fretted at the delay in getting there. Even when they had all got out +to the porch of the theatre he exhibited a controlled but intense +impatience because Charlie did not produce the car instantly from amidst +the confused hordes of cars that waited in the surrounding streets. +Moreover, as regards the ball, he had foolishly put himself in a false +position; for he was compelled to pretend that he had purchased the +tickets because he personally wanted to go to the ball. Had he not been +learning to dance? Now the fact was that he looked forward to the ball +with terror. He had never performed publicly. He proceeded from one +pretence to another. When Charlie stated curtly that he, Charlie, was +going to no ball, he feigned disappointment, saying that Charlie ought +to go for his sister's sake. Yet he was greatly relieved at Charlie's +departure (even in Lady Massulam's car); he could not stomach the +notion of Charlie cynically watching his infant steps on the polished, +treacherous floor. In the matter of Charlie, Oswald Morfey also feigned +disappointment, but for a different reason. Ozzie wanted to have Sissie +as much as possible to himself. + +Mr. Prohack yawned in the car. + +"You're over-tired, Arthur. It's the Turkish bath," said Eve with +commiseration. This was a bad enough mistake on her part, but she +worsened it by adding: "Perhaps the wisest thing would be for us all to +go home." + +Mr. Prohack was extremely exhausted, and would have given his head to go +home; but so odd, so contrary, so deceitful and so silly was his nature +that he replied: + +"Darling! Where on earth do you get these ideas from? There's nothing +like a Turkish bath for stimulating you, and I'm not at all tired. I +never felt better in my life. But the atmosphere of that theatre would +make anybody yawn." + +The ball was held in a picture-gallery where an exhibition of the +International Portrait Society was in progress. The crush of cars at the +portals was as keen as that at the portals of the Metropolitan. And all +the persons who got out of the cars seemed as fresh as if they had just +got out of bed. Mr. Prohack was astonished at the vast number of people +who didn't care what time they went to bed because they didn't care what +time they arose; he was in danger of being morbidly obsessed by the +extraordinary prevalence of idleness. The rooms were full of brilliant +idlers in all colours. Everybody except chorus girls had thought fit to +appear at this ball in aid of the admirably charitable Chorus Girls' Aid +Association. And as everybody was also on the walls, the dancers had to +compete with their portraits--a competition in which many of them were +well beaten. + +After they had visited the supper-room, where both Sissie and her mother +did wonderful feats of degustation and Mr. Prohack drank all that was +good for him, Sissie ordered her father to dance with her. He refused. +She went off with Ozzie, while her parents sat side by side on gold +chairs like ancestors. Sissie repeated her command, and Mr. Prohack was +about to disobey when Eliza Fiddle dawned upon the assemblage. + +The supernatural creature had been rehearsing until 3 a.m., she had been +trying on clothes from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. She had borne the chief +weight of _Smack Your Face_, on her unique shoulders for nearly three +hours and a half. She had changed into an unforgettable black +ball-dress, cut to demonstrate in the clearest fashion that her +shoulders had suffered no harm; and here she was as fresh as Aphrodite +from the foam. She immediately set herself to bear the chief weight of +the ball on those same defenceless shoulders; for she was, in theory at +any rate, the leading organiser of the affair, and according to the +entire press it was "her" ball. As soon as he saw her Mr. Prohack had a +most ridiculous fear lest she should pick him out for a dance, and to +protect himself he said "All right" to his daughter. + +A fox-trot announced itself. In his own drawing-room, with the door +locked, Mr. Prohack could and did treat a fox-trot as child's play. But +now he realised that he had utterly forgotten every movement of the +infernal thing. Agony as he stood up and took his daughter's hand! An +awful conviction that everybody (who was anybody) was staring to witness +the Terror of the departments trying to jazz in public for the first +time. A sick, sinking fear lest some of his old colleagues from the +Treasury might be lurking in corners to guy him! Agony as he collected +himself and swayed his body slightly to catch the rhythm of the tune! +Where in heaven's name was the first beat in the bar? + +"Walk first," said Sissie professionally.... He was in motion. + +"Now!" said Sissie. "_One_, two. _One_, two." Miraculously he was +dancing! It was as though the whole room was shouting: "They're off!" +Sissie steered him. + +"Don't look at your feet!" said she sharply, and like a schoolboy he +chucked his chin obediently up.... Then he was steering her. Although +her feet were the reverse of enormous he somehow could not keep off +them; but that girl was made of hardy stuff and never winced. He was +doing better. Pride was puffing him. Yet he desired the music to stop. +The music did stop. + +"Thanks," he breathed. + +"Oh, no!" said she. "That's not all." The dancers clapped and the +orchestra resumed. He started again. Couples surged around him, and +sometimes he avoided them and sometimes he did not. Then he saw a head +bobbing not far away, as if it were one cork and he another on a choppy +sea. It resembled Eve's head. It was Eve's head. She was dancing with +Oswald Morfey. He had never supposed that Eve could dance these new +dances. + +"Let's stop," said he. + +"Certainly not," Sissie forbade. "We must finish it." He finished it, +rather breathless and dizzy. He had lived through it. + +"You're perfectly wonderful, Arthur," said Eve when they met. + +"Oh no! I'm no good." + +"I was frightfully nervous about you at first," said Sissie. + +He said briefly: + +"You needn't have been. I wasn't." + +A little later Eve said to him: + +"Aren't you going to ask _me_ to dance, Arthur?" + +Dancing with Eve was not quite like dancing with Sissie, but they safely +survived deadly perils. And Mr. Prohack perspired in a very healthy +fashion. + +"You dance really beautifully, dear," said Eve, benevolently smiling. + +After that he cut himself free and roamed about. He wanted to ask Eliza +Fiddle to dance, and also he didn't want to ask her to dance. However, +he had apparently ceased to exist for her. Ozzie had introduced him to +several radiant young creatures. He wanted to ask them to dance; but he +dared not. And he was furious with himself. To dance with one's daughter +and wife was well enough in its way, but it was not the real thing. It +was without salt. One or two of the radiances glanced at him with +inviting eyes, but no, he dared not face it. He grew gloomy, gloomier. +He thought angrily: "All this is not for me. I'm a middle-aged fool, and +I've known it all along." Life lost its savour and became repugnant. +Fatigue punished him, and simultaneously reduced two hundred and fifty +thousand pounds to the value of about fourpence. It was Eve who got him +away. + +"Home," he called to Carthew, after Eve and Sissie had said good-bye to +Ozzie and stowed themselves into the car. + +"Excuse me," said Sissie. "You have to deliver me at the Grand Babylon +first." + +He had forgotten! This detour was the acutest torture of the night. He +could no longer bear not to be in bed. And when, after endless nocturnal +miles, he did finally get home and into bed, he sighed as one taken off +the rack. Ah! The delicious contact with the pillow! + + + + +VI + + +But there are certain persons who, although their minds are logical +enough, have illogical bodies. Mr. Prohack was one of these. His +ridiculous physical organism (as he had once informed Dr. Veiga) was +least capable of going to sleep when it was most fatigued. If Mr. +Prohack's body had retired to bed four hours earlier than in fact it +did, Mr. Prohack would have slept instantly and with ease. Now, despite +delicious contact with the pillow, he could not 'get off.' And his mind, +influenced by his body, grew restless, then excited, then distressingly +realistic. His mind began to ask fundamental questions, questions not a +bit original but none the less very awkward. + +"You've had your first idle day, Mr. Prohack," said his mind +challengingly instead of composing itself to slumber. "It was organised +on scientific lines. It was carried out with conscientiousness. And look +at you! And look at me! You've had a few good moments, as for example at +the Turkish bath, but do you want a succession of such days? Could you +survive a succession of such days? Would you even care to acquire a +hundred and fifty thousand pounds every day? You have eaten too much and +drunk too much, and run too hard after pleasure, and been too much +bored, and met too many antipathetic people, and squandered too much +money, and set a thoroughly bad example to your family. You have been +happy only in spasms. Your health is good; you are cured of your malady. +Does that render you any more contented? It does not. You have +complicated your existence in the hope of improving it. But have you +improved it? No. You ought to simplify your existence. But will you? You +will not. All your strength of purpose will be needed to prevent still +further complications being woven into your existence. To inherit a +hundred thousand pounds was your misfortune. But deliberately to +increase the sum to a quarter of a million was your fault. You were +happier at the Treasury. You left the Treasury on account of illness. +You are not ill any more. Will you go back to the Treasury? No. You will +never go back, because your powerful commonsense tells you that to +return to the Treasury with an income of twenty thousand a year would be +grotesque. And rather than be grotesque you would suffer. Again, +rightly. Nothing is worse than to be grotesque." + +"Further," said his mind, "you have started your son on a sinister +career of adventure that may end in calamity. You have ministered to +your daughter's latent frivolity. You have put temptations in the way of +your wife which she cannot withstand. You have developed yourself into a +waster. What is the remedy? Obviously to dispose of your money. But your +ladies would not permit you to do so and they are entitled to be heard +on the point. Moreover, how could you dispose of it? Not in charity, +because you are convinced of the grave social mischievousness of +charity. And not in helping any great social movement, because you are +not silly enough not to know that the lavishing of wealth never really +aids, but most viciously hinders, the proper evolution of a society. And +you cannot save your income and let it accumulate, because if you did +you would once again be tumbling into the grotesque; and you would, +further, be leaving to your successors a legacy of evil which no man is +justified in leaving to his successors. No! Your case is in practice +irremediable. Like the murderer on the scaffold, you are the victim of +circumstances. And not one human being in a million will pity you. You +are a living tragedy which only death can end." + +During this disconcerting session Eve had been mysteriously engaged in +the boudoir. She now came into the dark bedroom. + +"What?" she softly murmured, hearing Mr. Prohack's restlessness. "Not +asleep, darling?" She bent over him and kissed him and her kiss was even +softer, more soporific, than her voice. "Now do go to sleep." + +And Mr. Prohack went to sleep, and his last waking thought was, with the +feel of the kiss on his nose (the poor woman had aimed badly in the +dark): "Anyway this tragedy has one compensation, of which a hundred +quarter of a millions can't deprive me." + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE HEAVY FATHER + +I + + +Within a few moments of his final waking up the next morning, Mr. +Prohack beheld Eve bending over him, the image of solicitude. She was +dressed for outdoor business. + +"How do you feel?" she asked, in a tender tone that demanded to know the +worst at once. + +"Why?" asked Mr. Prohack, thus with one word, and a smile to match, +criticising her tone. + +"You looked so dreadfully tired last night. I did feel sorry for you, +darling. Don't you think you'd better stay in bed to-day?" + +"Can you seriously suggest such a thing?" he cried. "What about my daily +programme if I stay in bed? I have undertaken to be idle, and nobody can +be scientifically idle in bed. I'm late already. Where's my breakfast? +Where are my newspapers? I must begin the day without the loss of +another moment. Please give me my dressing-gown." + +"I very much wonder how your blood-pressure is," Eve complained. + +"And you, I suppose, are perfectly well?" + +"Oh, yes, I am. I'm absolutely cured. Dr. Veiga is really very +marvellous. But I always told you he was." + +"Well," said Mr. Prohack. "What's sauce for the goose has to be sauce +for the gander. If you're perfectly well, so am I. You can't have the +monopoly of good health in this marriage. What's that pamphlet you've +got in your hand, my dove?" + +"Oh! It's nothing. It's only about the League of all the Arts. Mr. +Morfey gave it to me." + +"I suppose it was that pamphlet you were reading last night in the +boudoir instead of coming to bed. Eve, you're hiding something from me. +Where are you going to in such a hurry?" + +"I'm not hiding anything, you silly boy.... I thought I'd just run along +and have a look at that house. You see, if it isn't at all the kind of +thing to suit us, me going first will save you the trouble of going." + +"_What house?_" exclaimed Mr. Prohack with terrible emphasis. + +"But Charlie told me he'd told you all about it," Eve protested +innocently. + +"Charlie told you no such thing," Mr. Prohack contradicted her. "If he +told you anything at all, he merely told you that he'd mentioned a house +to me in the most casual manner." + +Eve proceeded blandly: + +"It's in Manchester Square, very handy for the Wallace Gallery, and you +know how fond you are of pictures. It's on sale, furniture and all; but +it can be rented for a year to see how it suits us. Of course it may not +suit us a bit. I understand it has some lovely rooms. Charlie says it +would be exactly the thing for big receptions." + +"_Big receptions_! I shall have nothing to do with it. Now we've lost +our children even this house is too big for us. And I know what the +houses in Manchester Square are. You've said all your life you hate +receptions." + +"So I do. They're so much trouble. But one never knows what may +happen...! And with plenty of servants...!" + +"You understand me. I shall have nothing to do with it. Nothing!" + +"Darling, please, please don't excite yourself. The decision will rest +entirely with you. You know I shouldn't dream of influencing you. As if +I could! However, I've promised to meet Charlie there this morning. So I +suppose I'd better go. Carthew is late with the car." She tapped her +foot. "And yet I specially told him to be here prompt." + +"Well, considering the hour he brought us home, he's scarcely had time +to get into bed yet. He ought to have had the morning off." + +"Why? A chauffeur's a chauffeur after all. They know what they have to +do. Besides, Carthew would do anything for me." + +"Yes, that's you all over. You deliberately bewitch him, and then you +shamelessly exploit him. I shall compare notes with Carthew. I can give +him a useful tip or two about you." + +"Oh! Here he is!" said Eve, who had been watching out of the window. "Au +revoir, my pet. Here's Machin with your breakfast and newspapers. I +daresay I shall be back before you're up. But don't count on me." + +As he raised himself against pillows for the meal, after both she and +Machin had gone, Mr. Prohack remembered what his mind had said to him a +few hours earlier about fighting against further complications of his +existence, and he set his teeth and determined to fight hard. + +Scarcely had he begun his breakfast when Eve returned, in a state of +excitement. + +"There's a young woman downstairs waiting for you in the dining-room. +She wouldn't give her name to Machin, it seems, but she says she's your +new secretary. Apparently she recognised my car on the way from the +garage and stopped it and got into it; and then she found out she'd +forgotten something and the car had to go back with her to where she +lives, wherever that is, and that's why Carthew was late for _me_." Eve +delivered these sentences with a tremendous air of ordinariness, as +though they related quite usual events and disturbances, and as though +no wife could possibly see in them any matter for astonishment or +reproach. Such was one of her methods of making an effect. + +Mr. Prohack collected himself. On several occasions during the previous +afternoon and evening he had meditated somewhat uneasily upon the +domestic difficulties which might inhere in this impulsive engagement of +Miss Winstock as a private secretary, but since waking up the affair had +not presented itself to his mind. He had indeed completely forgotten it. + +"Who told you all this?" he asked warily. + +"Well, she told Machin and Machin told me." + +"Let me see now," said Mr. Prohack. "Yes. It's quite true. After +ordering a pair of braces yesterday morning, I did order a secretary. +She was recommended to me." + +"You didn't say anything about it yesterday." + +"My dove, had I a chance to do so? Had we a single moment together? And +you know how I was when we reached home, don't you?... You see, I always +had a secretary at the Treasury, and I feel sort of lost without one. So +I--" + +"But, darling, _of course_! I always believe in letting you do exactly +as you like. It's the only way.... Au revoir, my pet. Charlie will be +frightfully angry with me." And then, at the door: "If she hasn't got +anything to do she can always see to the flowers for me. Perhaps when I +come back you'll introduce us." + +As soon as he had heard the bang of the front-door Mr. Prohack rang his +bell. + +"Machin, I understand that my secretary is waiting in the dining-room." + +"Yes, sir." + +"Ask her to take her things off and then bring her up here." + +"Up here, sir?" + +"That's right." + +In seven movements of unimaginable stealthy swiftness Machin tidied the +worst disorders of the room and departed. Mr. Prohack continued his +breakfast. + +Miss Winstock appeared with a small portable typewriter in her arms and +a notebook lodged on the typewriter. She was wearing a smart black skirt +and a smart white blouse with a high collar. In her unsullied freshness +of attire she somewhat resembled a stage secretary on a first night; she +might have been mistaken for a brilliant imitation of a real secretary. + + +II + +"Good morning. So you're come," Mr. Prohack greeted her firmly. + +"Good morning. Yes, Mr. Prohack." + +"Well, put that thing down on a chair somewhere." + +Machin also had entered the room. She handed a paper to Mr. Prohack. + +"Mistress asked me to give you that, sir." + +It was a lengthy description, typewritten, of a house in Manchester +Square. + +"Pass me those matches, please," said Mr. Prohack to Mimi when they were +alone. "By the way, why wouldn't you give your name when you arrived?" + +"Because I didn't know what it was." + +"Didn't know what it was?" + +"When I told you my Christian name yesterday you said it wouldn't do at +all, and I was never to mention it again. In the absence of definite +instructions about my surname I thought I had better pursue a cautious +policy of waiting. I've told the chauffeur that he will know my name in +due course and that until I tell him what it is he mustn't know it. I +was not sure whether you would wish the members of your household to +know that I'm the person who had a collision with your car. Mrs. Prohack +and I were both in a state of collapse after the accident, and I was +removed before she could see me. Therefore she did not recognise me this +morning. But on the other hand she has no doubt heard my name often +enough since the accident and would recognise _that_." + +Mr. Prohack lit the first cigarette of the day. + +"Why did you bring that typewriter?" he asked gravely. + +"It's mine. I thought that if you didn't happen to have one here it +might be useful. It was the typewriter that the car had to go back for. +I'd forgotten it. I can take it away again. But if you like you can +either buy it or hire it from me." + +The girl could not have guessed it from his countenance, but Mr. Prohack +was thunderstruck. She was bringing forward considerations which +positively had not presented themselves to him. That she had much +initiative was clear from her conduct of the previous day. She now +disclosed a startling capacity for intrigue. Mr. Prohack, however, was +not intimidated. The experience of an official life had taught him the +value of taciturnity, and moreover a comfortable feeling of satisfaction +stole over him as he realised that once again he had a secretary under +his thumb. He seemed to be delightfully resuming the habits which +ill-health had so ruthlessly broken. + +"Mary Warburton," said he at length. + +"Certainly," said she. "I'll tell your chauffeur." + +"The initials will correspond--in case--" + +"Yes," said she. "I'd noticed that." + +"We will see what your typewriting machine is capable of, and then I'll +decide about it." + +"Certainly." + +"Please take down some letters." + +"Mr. Carrel Quire always told me what he wanted said, and I wrote the +letters myself." + +"That is very interesting," said Mr. Prohack. "Perhaps you can manage to +sit at the dressing-table. Mind that necklace there. It's supposed to be +rather valuable. Put it in the case, and put the case in the middle +drawer." + +"Don't you keep it in a safe?" said Miss Warburton, obeying. + +"All questions about necklaces should be addressed direct to Mrs. +Prohack." + +"I prefer to take down on my knee," said Miss Warburton, opening her +notebook, "if I am to take down." + +"You are. Now. 'Dear Madam. I am requested by my Lords of the Treasury +to forward to you the enclosed cheque for one hundred pounds for your +Privy Purse.' New line. 'I am also to state that no account of +expenditure will be required.' New line. 'Be good enough to acknowledge +receipt. Your obedient servant. To Miss Prohack, Grand Babylon Hotel.' +Got it? 'Dear Sir. With reference to the action instituted by your +company against Miss Mimi Winstock, and to my claim against your company +under my accident policy. I have seen the defendant. She had evidently +behaved in an extremely foolish not to say criminal way; but as the +result of a personal appeal from her I have decided to settle the matter +privately. Please therefore accept this letter as a release from all +your liabilities to me, and also as my personal undertaking to pay all +the costs of the action on both sides. Yours faithfully. Secretary, +World's Car Insurance Corporation.' Wipe your eyes, wipe your eyes, Miss +Warburton. You're wetting the notebook." + +"I was only crying because you're so kind. I know I _did_ behave in a +criminal way." + +"Just so, Miss Warburton. But it will be more convenient for me and for +you too if you can arrange to cry in your own time and not in mine." And +he continued to address her, in his own mind: "Don't think I haven't +noticed your aspiring nose and your ruthless little lips and your gift +for conspiracy and your wonderful weakness for tears! And don't confuse +me with Mr. Carrel Quire, because we're two quite different people! +You've got to be useful to me." And in a more remote part of his mind, +he continued still further: "You're quite a decent sort of child, only +you've been spoilt. I'll unspoil you. You've taken your first medicine +rather well. I like you, or I shall like you before I've done with you." + +Miss Warburton wiped her eyes. + +"You understand," Mr. Prohack proceeded aloud, "that you're engaged as +my confidential secretary. And when I say 'confidential' I mean +'confidential' in the fullest sense." + +"Oh, quite," Miss Warburton concurred almost passionately. + +"And you aren't anybody else's secretary but mine. You may pretend to be +everybody else's secretary, you may pretend as much as you please--it +may even be advisable to do so--but the fact must always remain that you +are mine alone. You have to protect my interests, and let me warn you +that my interests are sometimes very strange, not to say peculiar. Get +well into your head that there are not ten commandments in my service. +There is only one: to watch over my interests, to protect them against +everybody else in the whole world. In return for a living wage, you give +me the most absolute loyalty, a loyalty which sticks at nothing, +nothing, nothing." + +"Oh, Mr. Prohack!" replied Mary Warburton, smiling simply. "You needn't +tell me all that. I entirely understand. It's the usual thing for +confidential secretaries, isn't it?" + +"And now," Mr. Prohack went on, ignoring her. "This being made perfectly +clear, go into the boudoir--that's the room through there--and bring me +here all the parcels lying about. Our next task is to check the +accuracy of several of the leading tradesmen in the West End." + +"I think there are one or two more parcels that have been delivered this +morning, in the hall," said Miss Warburton. "Perhaps I had better fetch +them." + +"Perhaps you had." + +In a few minutes, Miss Warburton, by dint of opening parcels, had +transformed the bedroom into a composite of the principal men's shops in +Piccadilly and Bond Street. Mr. Prohack recoiled before the chromatic +show and also before the prospect of Eve's views on the show. + +"Take everything into the boudoir," said he, "and arrange them under the +sofa. It's important that we should not lose our heads in this crisis. +When you go out to lunch you will buy some foolscap paper and this +afternoon you will make a schedule of the goods, divided according to +the portions of the human frame which they are intended to conceal or +adorn. What are you laughing at, Miss Warburton?" + +"You are so amusing, Mr. Prohack." + +"I may be amusing, but I am not susceptible to the flattery of giggling. +Endeavour not to treat serious subjects lightly." + +"I don't see any boots." + +"Neither do I. You will telephone to the bootmaker's, and to my +tailor's; also to Sir Paul Spinner and Messrs. Smathe and Smathe. But +before that I will just dictate a few more letters." + +"Certainly." + +When he had finished dictating, Mr. Prohack said: + +"I shall now get up. Go downstairs and ask Machin--that's the +parlourmaid--to show you the breakfast-room. The breakfast-room is +behind the dining-room, and is so called because it is never employed +for breakfast. It exists in all truly London houses, and is perfectly +useless in all of them except those occupied by dentists, who use it for +their beneficent labours in taking things from, or adding things to, the +bodies of their patients. The breakfast-room in this house will be the +secretary's room--your room if you continue to give me satisfaction. +Remove that typewriting machine from here, and arrange your room +according to your desire.... And I say, Miss Warburton." + +"Yes, Mr. Prohack," eagerly responded the secretary, pausing at the +door. + +"Yesterday I gave you a brief outline of your duties. But I omitted one +exceedingly important item--almost as important as not falling in love +with my son. You will have to keep on good terms with Machin. Machin is +indispensable and irreplaceable. I could get forty absolutely loyal +secretaries while my wife was unsuccessfully searching for another +Machin." + +"I have an infallible way with parlourmaids," said Miss Warburton. + +"What is that?" + +"I listen to their grievances and to their love-affairs." + +Mr. Prohack, though fatigued, felt himself to be inordinately well, and +he divined that this felicity was due to the exercise of dancing on the +previous night, following upon the Turkish bath. He had not felt so well +for many years. He laughed to himself at intervals as he performed his +toilette, and knew not quite why. His secretary was just like a new toy +to him, offering many of the advantages of official life and routine +without any of the drawbacks. At half past eleven he descended, wearing +one or two of the more discreet of his new possessions, and with the +sensation of having already transacted a good day's work, into the +breakfast-room and found Miss Warburton and Machin in converse. Machin +feverishly poked the freshly-lit fire and then, pretending to have +urgent business elsewhere, left the room. + +"Here are some particulars of a house in Manchester Square," said Mr. +Prohack. "Please read them." + +Miss Warburton complied. + +"It seems really very nice," said she. "Very nice indeed." + +"Does it? Now listen to me. That house is apparently the most practical +and the most beautiful house in London. Judging from the description, it +deserves to be put under a glass-case in a museum and labelled 'the +ideal house.' There is no fault to be found with that house, and I +should probably take it at once but for one point. I don't want it. I do +not want it. Do I make myself clear? I have no use for it whatever." + +"Then you've inspected it." + +"I have not. But I don't want it. Now a determined effort will shortly +be made to induce me to take that house. I will not go into details or +personalities. I say merely that a determined effort will shortly be +made to force me to act against my will and my wishes. This effort must +be circumvented. In a word, the present is a moment when I may need the +unscrupulous services of an utterly devoted confidential secretary." + +"What am I to do?" + +"I haven't the slightest idea. All I know is that my existence must not +on any account be complicated, and that the possession of that house +would seriously complicate it." + +"Will you leave the matter to me, Mr. Prohack?" + +"What shall you do?" + +"Wouldn't it be better for you not to know what I should do?" Miss +Warburton glanced at him oddly. Her glance was agreeable, and yet +disconcerting. The attractiveness of the young woman seemed to be +accentuated. The institution of the confidential secretary was +magnified, in the eyes of Mr. Prohack, into one of the greatest +achievements of human society. + +"Not at all," said he, in reply. "You are under-rating my capabilities, +for I can know and not know simultaneously." + +"Well," said Miss Warburton. "You can't take an old house without having +the drains examined, obviously. Supposing the report on the drains was +unfavourable?" + +"Do you propose to tamper with the drains?" + +"Certainly not. I shouldn't dream of doing anything so disgraceful. But +I might tamper with the surveyor who made the report on the drains." + +"Say no more," Mr. Prohack adjured her. "I'm going out." + +And he went out, though he had by no means finished instructing Miss +Warburton in the art of being his secretary. She did not even know where +to find the essential tools of her calling, nor yet the names of +tradesmen to whom she had to telephone. He ought to have stayed in if +only to present his secretary to his wife. But he went out--to reflect +in private upon her initiative, her ready resourcefulness, her great +gift for conspiracy. He had to get away from her. The thought of her +induced in him qualms of trepidation. Could he after all manage her? +What a loss would she be to Mr. Carrel Quire! Nevertheless she was +capable of being foolish. It was her foolishness that had transferred +her from Mr. Carrel Quire to himself. + + +III + +Mr. Prohack went out because he was drawn out, by the force of an +attraction which he would scarcely avow even to himself,--a mysterious +and horrible attraction which, if he had been a logical human being like +the rest of us, ought to have been a repulsion for him. + +And as he was walking abroad in the pleasant foggy sunshine of the West +End streets, a plutocratic idler with nothing to do but yield to strange +impulses, he saw on a motor-bus the placard of a financial daily paper +bearing the line: "The Latest Oil Coup." He immediately wanted to buy +that paper. As a London citizen he held the opinion that whenever he +wanted a thing he ought to be able to buy it at the next corner. Yet now +he looked in every direction but could see no symptom of a newspaper +shop anywhere. The time was morning--for the West End it was early +morning--and there were newsboys on the pavements, but by a curious +anomaly they were selling evening and not morning newspapers. Daringly +he asked one of these infants for the financial daily; the infant +sniggered and did no more. Another directed him to a shop up an alley +off the Edgware Road. The shopman doubted the existence of any such +financial daily as Mr. Prohack indicated, apparently attaching no +importance to the fact that it was advertised on every motor-bus +travelling along the Edgware Road, but he suggested that if it did +exist, it might just conceivably be purchased at the main bookstall at +Paddington Station. Determined to obtain the paper at all costs, Mr. +Prohack stopped a taxi-cab and drove to Paddington, squandering +eighteenpence on the journey, and reflecting as he rolled forward upon +the primitiveness of a so-called civilisation in which you could not buy +a morning paper in the morning without spending the whole morning over +the transaction--and reflecting also upon the disturbing fact that after +one full day of its practice, his scheme of scientific idleness had gone +all to bits. He got the paper, and read therein a very exciting account +of Sir Paul Spinner's deal in oil-lands. The amount of Paul's profit was +not specified, but readers were given to understand that it was enormous +and that Paul had successfully bled the greatest Oil Combine in the +world. The article, though discreet and vague in phraseology, was well +worth a line on any placard. It had cost Mr. Prohack the price of a +complete Shakespere, but he did not call it dear. He threw the paper +away with a free optimistic gesture of delight. Yes, he had wisely put +his trust in old Paul and he was veritably a rich man--one who could +look down on mediocre fortunes of a hundred thousand pounds or so. +Civilisation was not so bad after all. + +Then the original attraction which had drawn him out of the house +resumed its pull.... Why did his subconscious feet take him in the +direction of Manchester Square? True, the Wallace Collection of pictures +is to be found at Hertford House, Manchester Square, and Mr. Prohack had +always been interested in pictures! Well, if he did happen to find +himself in Manchester Square he might perhaps glance at the exterior of +the dwelling which his son desired to plant upon him and his wife +desired him to be planted with.... It was there right enough. It had not +been spirited away in the night hours. He recognised the number. An +enormous house; the largest in the Square after Hertford House. Over +its monumental portico was an enormous sign, truthfully describing it as +"this noble mansion." As no automobile stood at the front-door Mr. +Prohack concluded that his wife's visit of inspection was over. +Doubtless she was seeking him at home at that moment to the end of +persuading him by her soft, unscrupulous arts to take the noble mansion. + +The front-door was ajar. Astounding carelessness on the part of the +caretaker! Mr. Prohack's subconscious legs carried him into the house. +The interior was amazing. Mr. Prohack had always been interested, not +only in pictures, but in furniture. Pictures and furniture might have +been called the weakness to which his circumstances had hitherto +compelled him to be too strong to yield. He knew a good picture, and he +knew a good piece of furniture, when he saw them. The noble mansion was +full of good pictures and good furniture. Evidently it had been the home +of somebody who had both fine tastes and the means to gratify them. And +the place was complete. Nothing had been removed, and nothing had been +protected against the grimy dust of London. The occupiers might have +walked out of it a few hours earlier. The effect of dark richness in the +half-shuttered rooms almost overwhelmed Mr. Prohack. Nobody preventing, +he climbed the beautiful Georgian staircase, which was carpeted with a +series of wondrous Persian carpets laid end to end. A woman in a black +apron appeared in the hall from the basement, gazed at Mr. Prohack's +mounting legs, and said naught. On the first-floor was the drawing-room, +a magnificent apartment exquisitely furnished in Louis Quinze. Mr. +Prohack blenched. He had expected nothing half so marvellous. Was it +possible that he could afford to take this noble mansion and live in it? +It was more than possible; it was sure. + +Mr. Prohack had a foreboding of a wild, transient impulse to take it. +The impulse died ere it was born. No further complications of his +existence were to be permitted; he would fight against them to the last +drop of his blood. And the complications incident to residence in such +an abode would be enormous. Still, he thought that he might as well see +the whole house, and he proceeded upstairs, wondering how many people +there were in London who possessed the taste to make, and the money to +maintain, such a home. Even the stairs from the first to the second +floor, were beautiful, having a lovely carpet, lovely engravings on the +walls, and a delightful balustrade. On the second-floor landing were two +tables covered with objects of art, any of which Mr. Prohack might have +pocketed and nobody the wiser; the carelessness that left the place +unguarded was merely prodigious. + +Mr. Prohack heard a sound; it might have been the creak of a floor-board +or the displacement of a piece of furniture. Startled, he looked through +a half-open door into a small room. He could see an old gilt mirror over +a fire-place; and in the mirror the images of the upper portions of a +young man and a young woman. The young woman was beyond question Sissie +Prohack. The young man, he decided after a moment of hesitation--for he +could distinguish only a male overcoated back in the glass--was Oswald +Morfey. The images were very close together. They did not move. Then Mr. +Prohack overheard a whisper, but did not catch its purport. Then the +image of the girl's face began to blush; it went redder and redder, and +the crimson seemed to flow downwards until the exposed neck blushed +also. A marvellous and a disconcerting spectacle. Mr. Prohack felt that +he himself was blushing. Then the two images blended, and the girl's +head and hat seemed to be agitated as by a high wind. And then both +images moved out of the field of the mirror. + +The final expression on the girl's face as it vanished was one of the +most exquisite things that Mr. Prohack had ever witnessed. It brought +the tears to his eyes. Nevertheless he was shocked. + +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 +neither. He would lunch at one of his clubs. No! He could not bring +himself to lunch at either club. He could face nobody. He resembled a +man who was secretly carrying a considerable parcel of high explosive. +He wandered until he could wander no more, and then he entered a +tea-shop that was nearly full of young girls. It was a new world to him. +He saw "Mutton pie 8d" on the menu and ordered it haphazard. He +discovered to his astonishment that he was hungry. Having eaten the +mutton pie, he ordered a second one, and ate it. The second mutton pie +seemed to endow the eater with the faculty of vision--a result which +perhaps no other mutton pie had ever before in the whole annals of +eating achieved. He felt much better. He was illuminated by a large, +refreshing wisdom, which thus expressed itself in his excited brain: + +"After all, I suppose it's not the first or the only instance of a girl +being kissed by a man. Similar incidents must occur quite often in the +history of the human race." + + +IV + +When he returned home his house seemed to be pitiably small, cramped, +and lacking in rich ornament; it seemed to be no sort of a house for a +man with twenty thousand a year. But he was determined to love his house +at all costs, and never to leave it. The philosopher within himself told +him that happiness does not spring from large houses built with hands. +And his own house was bright that afternoon; he felt as soon as he +entered it that it was more bright than usual. The reason was +immediately disclosed. Sissie was inside it. She had come for some +belongings and to pay a visit to her mother. + +"My word!" she greeted her father in the drawing-room, where she was +strumming while Eve leaned lovingly on the piano. "My word! We are fine +with our new private secretary!" + +Not a sign on that girl's face, nor in her demeanour, that she had an +amorous secret, that something absolutely unprecedented had happened to +her only a few hours earlier! The duplicity of women astonished even the +philosopher in Mr. Prohack. + +"Will she mention it or won't she?" Mr. Prohack asked himself; and then +began to equal Sissie in duplicity by demanding of his women in a tone +of raillery what they thought of the new private secretary. He reflected +that he might as well know the worst at once. + +"She'll do," said Sissie gaily, and Eve said: "She seems very willing to +oblige." + +"Ah!" Mr. Prohack grew alert. "She's been obliging you already, has +she?" + +"Well," said Eve. "It was about the new house--" + +"What new house?" + +"But you know, darling. Charlie mentioned it to you last night, and I +told you that I was going to look at it this morning." + +"Oh! _That_!" Mr. Prohack ejaculated disdainfully. + +"I've seen it. I've been all over it, and it's simply lovely. I never +saw anything equal to it." + +"Of course!" + +"And so cheap!" + +"Of course!" + +"But it's ripping, dad, seriously." + +"Seriously ripping, it is? Well, so far as I am concerned I shall let it +rip." + +"I rushed back here as soon as I'd seen it," Eve proceeded, quietly +ignoring the last remark. "But you'd gone out without saying where. +Nobody knew where you'd gone. It was very awkward, because if we want +this house we've got to decide at once--at latest in three days, Charlie +says. Miss Warburton--that's her name, isn't it?--Miss Warburton had a +very bright idea. She seems to know quite a lot about property. She +thought of the drains. She said the first thing would be to have the +drains inspected, and that if there was any hurry the surveyors ought to +be instructed instantly. She knew some surveyor people, and so she's +gone out to see the agents and get permission from them for the +surveyors to inspect, and she'll see the surveyors at the same time. She +says we ought to have the report by to-morrow afternoon. She's very +enterprising." + +The enterprisingness of Miss Warburton frightened Mr. Prohack. She had +acted exactly as he would have wished--only better; evidently she was +working out his plot against the house in the most efficient manner. +Yet he was frightened. So much so that he could find nothing to say +except: "Indeed!" + +"You never told me she used to be with Mr. Carrel Quire and is related +to the Paulle family," observed Eve, mingling a mild reproach with +joyous vivacity, as if saying: "Why did you keep this titbit from me?" + +"I must now have a little repose," said Mr. Prohack. + +"We'll leave you," Eve said, eager to be agreeable. "You must be tired, +you poor dear. I'm just going out to shop with Sissie. I'm not sure if I +shall be in for tea, but I will be if you think you'll be lonely." + +"Did you do much entertaining at lunch, young woman?" Mr. Prohack asked. + +"Charlie had several people--men--but I really don't know who they were. +And Ozzie Morfey came. And permit me to inform you that Charlie was +simply knocked flat by my qualities as a hostess. Do you know what he +said to me afterwards? He said: 'That lunch was a bit of all right, +kid.' Enormous from Charlie, wasn't it?" + +Mother and daughter went out arm in arm like two young girls. Beyond +question they were highly pleased with themselves and the world. Eve +returned after a moment. + +"Are you comfortable, dear? I've told Machin you mustn't on any account +be disturbed. Charlie's borrowed the car. We shall get a taxi in the +Bayswater Road." She bent down and seemed to bury her soft lips in his +cheek. She was beginning to have other interests than himself. And since +she had nothing now to worry about, in a maternal sense, she had become +a child. She was fat--at any rate nobody could describe her as less than +plump--and over forty, but a child, an exquisite child. He magnificently +let her kiss him. However, he knew that she knew that she was his sole +passion. She whispered most intimately and persuasively into his ear: + +"Shall we have a look at that house to-morrow morning, just you and I? +You'll love the furniture." + +"Perhaps," he replied. What else could he reply? He very much desired to +have a talk with her about Sissie and the fellow Morfey; but he could +not broach the subject because he could not tell her in cold blood that +he had seen Sissie in Morfey's arms. To do so would have an effect like +setting fire to the home. Unless, of course, Sissie had already confided +in her mother? Was it conceivable that Eve had a secret from him? It was +certainly conceivable that he had a secret from Eve. Not only was he +hiding from her his knowledge of the startling development in the +relations between Sissie and Morfey,--he had not even told her that he +had seen the house in Manchester Square. He was leading a double +life,--consequence of riches! Was she? + +As soon as she had softly closed the door he composed himself, for he +was in fact considerably exhausted. Remembering a conversation at the +club with a celebrated psycho-analyst about the possibilities of +auto-suggestion, he strove to empty his mind and then to repeat to +himself very rapidly in a low murmur: "You will sleep, you will sleep, +you will sleep, you will sleep," innumerable times. But the incantation +would not work, probably because he could not keep his mind empty. The +mysterious receptacle filled faster than he could empty it. It filled +till it flowed over with the flooding realisation of the awful +complexity of existence. He longed to maintain its simplicity, well +aware that his happiness would result from simplicity alone. But +existence flatly refused to be simple. He desired love in a cottage with +Eve. He could have bought a hundred cottages, all in ideal surroundings. +The mere fact, however, that he was in a position to buy a hundred +cottages somehow made it impossible for him to devote himself +exclusively to loving Eve in one cottage.... + +His imagination leaped over intervening events and he pictured the +wedding of Sissie as a nightmare of complications--no matter whom she +married. He loathed weddings. Of course a girl of Sissie's sense and +modernity ought to insist on being married in a registry office. But +would she? She would not. For a month previous to marriage all girls +cast off modernity and became Victorian. Yes, she would demand real +orange-blossom and everything that went with it.... He got as far as +wishing that Sissie might grow into an old maid, solely that he might be +spared the wearing complications incident to the ceremony of marriage as +practised by intelligent persons in the twentieth century. His character +was deteriorating, and he could not stop it from deteriorating.... + +Then Sissie herself came very silently into the room. + +"Sit down, my dear. I want to talk to you," he said in his most +ingratiating and sympathetic tones. And in quite another tone he +addressed her silently: "It's time I taught you a thing or two, my +wench." + +"Yes, father," she responded charmingly to his wily ingratiatingness, +and sat down. + +"If you were the ordinary girl," he began, "I shouldn't say a word. It +would be no use. But you aren't. And I flatter myself I'm not the +ordinary father. You are in love. Or you think you are. Which is the +same thing--for the present. It's a fine thing to be in love. I'm quite +serious. I like you tremendously just for being in love. Yes, I do. Now +I know something about being in love. You've got enough imagination to +realise that, and I want you to realise it. I want you to realise that I +know a bit more about love than you do. Stands to reason, doesn't it?" + +"Yes, father," said Sissie, placidly respectful. + +"Love has got one drawback. It very gravely impairs the critical +faculty. You think you can judge our friend Oswald with perfect +impartiality. You think you see him as he is. But if you will exercise +your imagination you will admit that you can't. You perceive that, don't +you?" + +"Quite, dad," the adorable child concurred. + +"Well, do you know anything about him, really?" + +"Not much, father." + +"Neither do I. I've nothing whatever against him. But I shouldn't be +playing straight with you if I didn't tell you that at the club he's not +greatly admired. And a club is a very good judge of a man, the best +judge of a man. And then as regards his business. Supposing you were not +in love with him, should you like his business? You wouldn't. Naturally. +There are other things, but I won't discuss them now. All I suggest to +you is that you should go a bit slow. Exercise caution. Control +yourself. Test him a little. If you and I weren't the greatest pals I +shouldn't be such an ass as to talk in this strain to you. But I know +you won't misunderstand me. I know you know there's absolutely no +conventional nonsense about me, just as I know there's absolutely no +conventional nonsense about you. I'm perfectly aware that the old can't +teach the young, and that oftener than not the young are right and the +old wrong. But it's not a question of old and young between you and me. +It's a question of two friends--that's all." + +"Dad," said she, "you're the most wonderful dad that ever was. Oh! If +everybody would talk like that!" + +"Not at all! Not at all!" he deprecated, delighted with himself and her. +"I'm simply telling you what you know already. I needn't say any more. +You'll do exactly as you think best, and whatever you do will please me. +I don't want you to be happy in my way--I want you to be happy in your +own way. Possibly you'll decide to tell Mr. Morfey to wait for three +months." + +"I most decidedly shall, dad," Sissie interrupted him, "and I'm most +frightfully obliged to you." + +He had always held that she was a marvellous girl, and here was the +proof. He had spoken with the perfection of tact and sympathy and +wisdom, but his success astonished him. At this point he perceived that +Sissie was not really sitting in the chair at all and that the chair was +empty. So that the exhibition of sagacity had been entirely wasted. + +"Anyhow I've had a sleep," said the philosopher in him. + +The door opened. Machin appeared, defying her mistress's orders. + +"I'm sorry to disturb you, sir, but a Mr. Morfey is on the telephone and +asks whether it would be convenient for you to see him to-night. He says +it's urgent." Mr. Prohack braced himself, but where his stomach had been +there was a void. + + +V + +"Had an accident to your eye-glass?" asked Mr. Prohack, shaking hands +with Oswald Morfey, when the latter entered, by appointment, Mr. +Prohack's breakfast-room after dinner. Miss Warburton having gone home, +Mr. Prohack had determined to employ her official room for formal +interviews. With her woman's touch she had given it an air of business +which pleasantly reminded him of the Treasury. + +Ozzie was not wearing an eye-glass, and the absence of the broad black +ribbon that usually ran like a cable-connection between his eye and his +supra-umbilical region produced the disturbing illusion that he had +forgotten an essential article of attire. + +"Yes," Ozzie replied, opening his eyes with that mien of surprise that +was his response to all questions, even the simplest. "Miss Sissie has +cracked it." + +"I'm very sorry my daughter should be so clumsy." + +"It was not exactly clumsiness. I offered her the eye-glass to do what +she pleased with, and she pleased to break it." + +"Surely an impertinence?" + +"No. A favour. Miss Sissie did not care for my eye-glass." + +"You must be considerably incommoded." + +"No. The purpose of my eye-glass was decorative, not optical." Ozzie +smiled agreeably, though nervously. + +Mr. Prohack was conscious of a certain surprising sympathy for this +chubby simpering young man with the peculiar vocation, whom but lately +he had scorned and whom on one occasion he had described as a perfect +ass. + +"Well, shall we sit down?" suggested the elder, whom the younger's +nervousness had put into an excellent state of easy confidence. + +"The fact is," said Ozzie, obeying, "the fact is that I've come to see +you about Sissie. I'm very anxious to marry her, Mr. Prohack." + +"Indeed! Then you must excuse this old velvet coat. If I'd had notice of +the solemnity of your visit, my dear Morfey, I'd have met you in a +dinner jacket. May I just put one question? Have you kissed Sissie +already?" + +"I--er--have." + +"By force or by mutual agreement?" + +"Neither." + +"She made no protest?" + +"No." + +"The reverse rather?" + +"Yes." + +"Then why do you come here to me?" + +"To get your consent." + +"I suppose you arranged with Sissie that you should come here?" + +"Yes, I did. We thought it would be best if I came alone." + +"Well, all I can say is that you're a very old-fashioned pair. I'm +afraid that you must have forgotten to alter your date calendar when the +twentieth century started. Let me assure you that this is not by any +means the nineteenth. I admit that I only altered my own date calendar +this afternoon, and even then only as the result of an unusual dream." + +"Yes?" said Ozzie politely, and he said nothing else, but it seemed to +Mr. Prohack that Ozzie was thinking: "This queer old stick is taking +advantage of his position to make a fool of himself in his queer old +way." + +"Let us examine the circumstances," Mr. Prohack proceeded. "You want to +marry Sissie. Therefore you respect her. Therefore you would not have +invited her to marry unless you had been reasonably sure that you +possessed the brains and the material means to provide for her physical +and moral comfort not merely during the next year but till the end of +her life. It would be useless, not to say impolite, for me to question +you as to your situation and your abilities, because you are convinced +about both, and if you failed to convince me about both you would leave +here perfectly sure that the fault was mine and not yours, and you would +pursue your plans just the same. Moreover, you are a man of the +world--far more a man of the world than I am myself--and you are +unquestionably the best judge of your powers to do your duty towards a +wife. Of course some might argue that I, being appreciably older than +you, am appreciably wiser than you and that my opinion on vital matters +is worth more than yours. But you know, and perhaps I know too, that in +growing old a man does not really become wiser; he simply acquires a +different sort of wisdom--whether it is a better or a worse sort nobody +can decide. All we know is that the extremely young and the extremely +old are in practice generally foolish. Which leads you nowhere at all. +But looking at history we perceive that the ideas of the moderately +young have always triumphed against the ideas of the moderately old. And +happily so, for otherwise there could be no progress. Hence the balance +of probability is that, assuming you and I were to differ, you would be +more right than I should be." + +"But I hope that we do not differ, sir," said Ozzie. And Mr. Prohack +found satisfaction in the naturalness, the freedom from pose, of Ozzie's +diffident and disconcerted demeanour. His sympathy for the young man was +increased by the young man's increasing consternation. + +"Again," resumed Mr. Prohack, ignoring Ozzie's hope. "Take the case of +Sissie herself. Sissie's education was designed and superintended by +myself. The supreme aim of education should be to give sound judgment in +the great affairs of life, and moral stamina to meet the crises which +arrive when sound judgment is falsified by events. If I were to tell you +that in my opinion Sissie's judgment of you as a future husband was +unsound, it would be equivalent to admitting that my education of Sissie +had been unsound. And I could not possibly admit such a thing. Moreover, +just as you are a man of the world, so Sissie is a woman of the world. +By heredity and by natural character she is sagacious, and she has +acquainted herself with all manner of things as to which I am entirely +ignorant. Nor can I remember any instance of her yielding, from genuine +conviction, to my judgment when it was opposed to hers. From all which +it follows, my dear Morfey, that your mission to me here this evening is +a somewhat illogical, futile, and unnecessary mission, and that the +missioner must be either singularly old-fashioned and conventional--or +laughing in his sleeve at me. No!" Mr. Prohack with a nineteenth century +wave of the hand deprecated Ozzie's interrupting protest. "No! There is +a third alternative, and I accept it. You desired to show me a courtesy. +I thank you." + +"But have you no questions to ask me?" demanded Ozzie. + +"Yes," said Mr. Prohack. "How did you first make the acquaintance of my +daughter?" + +"Do you mean to say you don't know? Hasn't Sissie ever told you?" + +"Never. What is more, she has never mentioned your name in any +conversation until somebody else had mentioned it. Such is the result of +my educational system, and the influence of the time-spirit." + +"Well, I'm dashed!" exclaimed Ozzie sincerely. + +"I hope not, Morfey. I hope not, if by dashed you mean 'damned.'" + +"But it was the most wonderful meeting, Mr. Prohack," Ozzie burst out, +and he was in such an enthusiasm that he almost forgot to lisp. "You +knew I was in M.I. in the war, after my trench fever." + +"M.I., that is to say, Secret Service." + +"Yes. Secret Service if you like. Well, sir, I was doing some work in +the East End, in a certain foreign community, and I had to get away +quickly, and so I jumped into a motor-van that happened to be passing. +That van was driven by Sissie!" + +"An example of fact imitating fiction!" remarked Mr. Prohack, seeking, +not with complete success, to keep out of his voice the emotion +engendered in him by Ozzie's too brief recital. "Now that's one +question, and you have answered it brilliantly. My second and last +question is this: Are you in love with Sissie--" + +"Please, Mr. Prohack!" Ozzie half rose out of his chair. + +"Or do you love her? The two things are very different." + +"I beg your pardon, sir. I hadn't quite grasped," said Ozzie +apologetically, subsiding. "I quite see what you mean. I'm both." + +"You are a wonder!" Mr. Prohack murmured. + +"Anyway, sir, I'm glad you don't object to our engagement." + +"My dear Oswald," said Mr. Prohack in a new tone. "Do you imagine that +after my daughter had expressed her view of you by kissing you I could +fail to share that view. You have a great opinion of Sissie, but I doubt +whether your opinion of her is greater than mine. We will now have a +little whiskey together." + +Ozzie's chubby face shone as in his agreeable agitation he searched for +the eye-glass ribbon that was not there. + +"Well, sir," said he, beaming. "This interview has not been at all like +what I expected." + +"Nor like what I expected either," said Mr. Prohack. "But who can +foresee the future?" And he added to himself: "Could I foresee when I +called this youth a perfect ass that in a very short time I should be +receiving him, not unpleasantly, as a prospective son-in-law? Life is +marvellous." + +At the same moment Mrs. Prohack entered the room. + +"Oh!" cried she, affecting to be surprised at the presence of Ozzie. + +"Wife!" said Mr. Prohack, "Mr. Oswald Morfey has done you the honour to +solicit the hand of your daughter in marriage. You are staggered! + +"How ridiculous you are, Arthur!" said Mrs. Prohack, and impulsively +kissed Ozzie. + + +VI + +The wedding festivities really began the next evening with a family +dinner to celebrate Sissie's betrothal. The girl arrived magnificent +from the Grand Babylon, escorted by her lover, and found Mrs. Prohack +equally magnificent--indeed more magnificent by reason of the pearl +necklace. It seemed to Mr. Prohack that Eve had soon become quite used +to that marvellous necklace; he had already had to chide her for leaving +it about. Ozzie also was magnificent; even lacking his eye-glass and +ribbon he was magnificent. Mr. Prohack, esteeming that a quiet domestic +meal at home demanded no ceremony, had put on his old velvet, but Eve +had sharply corrected his sense of values--so shrewishly indeed that +nobody would have taken her for the recent recipient of a marvellous +necklace at his hands--and he had yielded to the extent of a +dinner-jacket. Charlie had not yet come. Since the previous afternoon he +had been out of town on mighty enterprises, but Sissie had seen him +return to the hotel before she left it, and he was momently expected. +Mr. Prohack perceived that Eve was treating Ozzie in advance as her son, +and Ozzie was responding heartily: a phenomenon which Mr. Prohack in +spite of himself found agreeable. Sissie showed more reserve than her +mother towards Ozzie; but then Sissie was a proud thing, which Eve never +was. Mr. Prohack admitted privately that he was happy--yes, he was happy +in the betrothal, and he had most solemnly announced and declared that +he would have naught to do with the wedding beyond giving a marriage +gift to his daughter and giving his daughter to Ozzie. And when Sissie +said that as neither she nor Ozzie had much use for the state of being +merely engaged the wedding would occur very soon, Mr. Prohack rejoiced +at the prospect of the upset being so quickly over. After the emotions +and complications of the wedding he would settle down to +simplicity,--luxurious possibly, but still simplicity: the plain but +perfect. And let his fortune persist in accumulating, well it must +accumulate and be hanged to it! + +"But what about getting a house?" he asked his daughter. + +"Oh, we shall live in Ozzie's flat," said Sissie. + +"Won't it be rather small?" + +"The smaller the better," said Sissie. "It will match our income." + +"Oh, my dear girl," Eve protested, with a glance at Mr. Prohack to +indicate that for the asking Sissie could have all the income she +wanted. "And I'll give you an idea," Eve brightly added. "You can have +_this_ house rent free." + +Sissie shook her head. + +"Don't make so sure that they can have this house," said Mr. Prohack. + +"But, Arthur! You've agreed to go and look at Manchester Square! And +it's all ready excepting the servants. I'm told that if you don't want +less than seven servants, including one or two menservants, there's no +difficulty about servants at all. I shall be very disappointed if we +don't have the wedding from Manchester Square." + +Mr. Prohack writhed, though he knew himself safe. Seven servants; two +menservants? No! And again no! No complications! + +"I shall only agree to Manchester Square," said he with firmness and +solemnity, "subject to the drains being all right. Somebody in the place +must show a little elementary sagacity and restraint." + +"But the drains are bound to be all right!" + +"I hope so," said the deceitful father. "And I believe they will be. But +until we're sure--nothing can be done." And he laughed satanically to +himself. + +"Haven't you had the report yet?" Sissie complained. "Miss Warburton was +to try to get hold of it to-night." + +A moment later Machin, in a condition of high excitement due to the +betrothal, brought in a large envelope, saying that Miss Warburton had +just left it. The envelope contained the report of Messrs. Doy and Doy +on the drains of the noble mansion. Mr. Prohack read it, frowned, and +pursed his judicial lips. + +"Read it, my dear," he said to Eve. + +Eve read that Messrs. Doy and Doy found themselves unable, after a +preliminary inspection, which owing to their instructions to be speedy +had not been absolutely exhaustive, to certify the drains of the noble +mansion. They feared the worst, but there was of course always a slight +hope of the best, or rather the second best. (They phrased it +differently but they meant that.) In the meantime they would await +further instructions. Mr. Prohack reflected calmly: "My new secretary is +an adept of the first conspiratorial order." Eve was shocked into +silence. (Doy and Doy used very thick and convincing note-paper.) The +entrance of Charlie loosed her tongue. + +"Charlie!" she cried. "The drains are all wrong. Look at this. And +didn't you say the option expired to-morrow?" + +Charlie read the report. + +"Infernal rascals!" he muttered. "Whose doing is this? Who's been +worrying about drains?" He looked round accusingly. + +"I have," said Mr. Prohack bravely, but he could not squarely meet the +boy's stern glance. + +"Well, dad, what did you take me for? Did you suppose I should buy an +option on a house without being sure of the drains? My first act was to +have the drains surveyed by Flockers, the first firm in London, and I've +got their certificate. As for Doy and Doy, they're notorious. They want +to stop everybody else but themselves getting a commission on that +house, and this--" he slapped the report--"this is how they're setting +about it." + +Eve adored her son. + +"You see," she said victoriously to Mr. Prohack, who secretly trembled. + +"I shall bring an action against Doy and Doy," Charlie continued. "I'll +show the whole rascally thing up." + +"I hope you'll do no such thing, my boy," said Mr. Prohack, foolishly +attempting the grandiose. + +"I most positively shall, dad." + +Mr. Prohack realised desperately that all was lost except honour, and he +was by no means sure about even honour. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +TRANSFER OF MIMI + + +I + +Mr. Prohack passed a very bad night--the worst for months, one of the +outstanding bad nights of his whole existence. + +"Why didn't I have it out with Charlie before he left?" he asked himself +some scores of times while listening to the tranquil regular breathing +of Eve, who of course was now sure of her house and probably had quite +forgotten the meaning of care. "I'm bound to have it out with him sooner +or later, and if I'd done it at once I should at any rate have slept. +They're all sleeping but me." + +He simply could not comprehend life; the confounded thing called life +baffled him by its mysterious illogicalness. He was adored by his +spouse, beloved by his children, respected by the world. He had heaps of +money, together with the full control of it. His word, if he chose, was +law. He had only to say: "I will not take the house in Manchester +Square," and nobody could thwart him. He powerfully desired not to take +it. There was no sensible reason why he should take it. And yet he would +take it, under the inexplicable compulsion of circumstances. In those +sombre hours he had a fellow-feeling for Oriental tyrants, who were +absolute autocrats but also slaves of exactly the same sinister force +that had gripped himself. He perceived that in practice there is no such +thing as an autocrat.... + +Not that his defeat in regard to the house really disturbed him. He +could reconcile himself to the house, despite the hateful complications +which it would engender. What disturbed him horribly was the drains +business, the Doy and Doy business, the Mimi business; he could see no +way out of that except through the valley of humiliation. He remembered, +with terrible forebodings, the remark of his daughter after she heard of +the heritage: "You'll never be as happy again." + +When the household day began and the familiar comfortable distant noises +of domestic activity announced that the solar system was behaving much +as usual in infinite and inconceivable space, he decided that he was +too tired to be scientifically idle that day--even though he had a +trying-on appointment with Mr. Melchizidek. He decided, too, that he +would not get up, would in fact take everything lying down, would refuse +to descend a single step of the stairs to meet trouble. And he had a +great wish to be irritated and angry. But, the place seemed to be full +of angels who turned the other cheek--and the other cheek was +marvellously soft and bewitching. + +Eve, Sissie (who had called), and Machin--they were all in a state of +felicity, for the double reason that Sissie was engaged to be married, +and that the household was to move into a noble mansion. Machin saw +herself at the head of a troup of sub-parlourmaids and housemaids and +tweenies, and foretold that she would stand no nonsense from butlers. +They all treated Mr. Prohack as a formidable and worshipped tyrant, +whose smile was the sun and whose frown death, and who was the fount of +wisdom and authority. They knew that he wanted to be irritated, and they +gave him no chance to be irritated. Their insight into his psychology +was uncanny. They knew that he was beaten on the main point, and with +their detestable feminine realism they exquisitely yielded on all the +minor points. Eve, fresh as a rose, bent over him and bedewed him, and +said that she was going out and that Sissie had gone again. + +When he was alone he rang the bell for Machin as though the bell had +done him an injury. + +"What time is it?" + +"Eleven o'clock, sir." + +"Eleven o'clock! Good God! Why hasn't Miss Warburton come?" + +As if Machin was responsible for Miss Warburton!... No! Mr. Prohack was +not behaving nicely, and it cannot be hidden that he lacked the grandeur +of mind which distinguishes most of us. + +"Miss Warburton was here before ten o'clock, sir." + +"Then why hasn't she come up?" + +"She was waiting for orders, sir." + +"Send her up immediately." + +"Certainly, sir." + +Miss Warburton was the fourth angel--an angel with another +spick-and-span blouse, and the light of devotion in her eyes and the +sound of it in her purling voice. + +"Good morning," the gruff brute started. "Did I hear the telephone-bell +just now?" + +"Yes, sir. Doy and Doy have telephoned to say that Mr. Charles Prohack +has just been in to see them, and they've referred him to you, +and--and--" + +"And what? And what? And what?" (A machine-gun.) + +"They said he was extremely unpleasant." + +Instinctively Mr. Prohack threw away shame. Mimi was his minion. He +treated her as an Oriental tyrant might treat the mute guardian of the +seraglio, and told her everything,--that Charlie had forestalled them in +the matter of the drains of the noble mansion, that Charlie had +determined to destroy Doy and Doy, that he, Mr. Prohack, was caught in a +trap, that there was the devil to pay, and that the finest lies that +ingenuity could invent would have to be uttered. He abandoned all +pretence of honesty and uprightness. Mimi showed no surprise whatever, +nor was she apparently in the least shocked. She seemed to regard the +affair as a quite ordinary part of the day's routine. Her insensitive +calm frightened Mr. Prohack. + +"Now we must think of something," said the iniquitous monster. + +"I don't see that there need be any real difficulty," Mimi replied. +"_You_ didn't know anything about my plot with Doy and Doy. I got the +notion--quite wrongly--that you preferred not to have the house, and I +acted as I did through an excess of zeal. I must confess the plot. I +alone am to blame, and I admit that what I did was quite inexcusable." + +"What a girl! What a girl!" thought Mr. Prohack. But there were limits +to his iniquity, and he said aloud, benevolently, grandiosely: "But I +did know about it. You as good as told me exactly what you meant to do, +and I let you do it. I approved, and I am responsible. Nothing will +induce me to let you take the responsibility. Let that be clearly +understood, please." + +He looked squarely at the girl, and watched with apprehension her +aspiring nose rise still further, her delicate ruthless mouth become +still more ruthless. + +"Excuse me," she said. "My plan is the best. It's the obvious plan. Mr. +Carrel Quire often adopted it. I'm afraid you're hesitating to trust me +as I expect to be trusted. Please don't forget that you sacrificed an +empire for me--I shall always remember that. And what's more, you said +you expected from me absolute loyalty to your interests. I can stand +anything but not being trusted--_fully_!" + +Mr. Prohack sank deeper into the bed, and laughed loudly, immoderately, +titanically. His ill-humour vanished as a fog will vanish. Nevertheless +he was appalled by the revelation of the possibilities of the girl's +character. + +The strange scene was interrupted by the arrival of Charlie, who, thanks +to his hypnotic influence over Machin, came masterfully straight +upstairs, entered the bedroom without asking permission to do so, and, +in perfect indifference to the alleged frailty of his father's health, +proceeded to business. + + +II + +"Dad," said he, after Mimi had gone through her self-ordained martyrdom +and left the room. "I wonder whether you quite realise what a top-hole +creature that Warburton girl is. She's perfectly astounding." + +"She is," Mr. Prohack admitted. + +"She's got ideas." + +"She has." + +"And she isn't afraid of carrying them out." + +"She is not." + +"She's much too good for you, dad." + +"She is." + +"I mean, you can't really make full use of her, can you? She's got no +scope here." + +"She makes her own scope," said Mr. Prohack. + +"Now I honestly do need a good secretary," Charlie at last unmasked his +attack. "I've got a temporary idiot, and I want a first-rater, +preferably a woman. I wish you'd be decent and turn Miss Warburton over +to me. She'd be invaluable to me, and with me she really _would_ have +scope for her talents." Charlie laughed. + +"What are you laughing at?" + +"I was only thinking of her having the notion of queering the drains +like that because she wanted to please you. It was simply great. It's +the best thing I ever heard." He laughed again. "Now, dad, will you turn +her over to me?" + +"You appear to think she's a slave to be bought and sold and this room +the slave-market," said Mr. Prohack. "It hasn't occurred to you that +_she_ might object to the transfer." + +"Oh! I can soon persuade _her_." said Charlie, lightly. + +"But you couldn't easily persuade me. And I may as well inform you at +once, my poor ingenuous boy, that I won't agree. I will never agree. +Miss Warburton is necessary to my existence." + +"All in two or three days, is she?" Charlie observed sarcastically. + +"Yes." + +"Well, father, as we're talking straight, let's talk straight. I'm going +to take her from you. It's a very little help I'm asking you for, and +that you should refuse is a bit thick. I shall speak to the mater." + +"And what shall you say?" + +"I shall tell her all about the plot against the new house. It was +really a plot against her, because she wants the house--the house is +nothing to me. I may believe that you knew nothing about the plot +yourself, but I'll lay you any odds the mater won't." + +"Speaking as man to man, my boy, I lay you any odds you can't put your +mother against me." + +"Oh!" cried Charlie, "she won't _say_ she believes you're guilty, but +she'll believe it all the same. And it's what people think that matters, +not what they say they think." + +"That's wisdom," Mr. Prohack agreed. "I see that I brought you up not so +badly after all. But doesn't it strike you that you're trying to +blackmail your father? I hope I taught you sagacity, but I never +encouraged you in blackmail--unless my memory fails me." + +"You can call it by any name you please," said Charlie. + +"Very well, then, I will. I'll call it blackmail. Give me a cigarette." +He lit the offered cigarette. "Anything else this morning?" + +Father and son smiled warily at one another. Both were amused and even +affectionate, but serious in the battle. + +"Come along, dad. Be a sport. Anyhow, let's ask the girl." + +"Do you know what my answer to blackmail is?" Mr. Prohack blandly +enquired. + +"No." + +"My answer is the door. Drop the subject entirely. Or sling your +adventurous book." + +Mr. Prohack was somewhat startled to see Charlie walk straight out of +the bedroom. A disturbing suspicion that there might be something +incalculable in his son was rudely confirmed. + +He said to himself: "But this is absurd." + + +III + +That morning the Prohack bedroom seemed to be transformed into a sort of +public square. No sooner had Charlie so startlingly left than Machin +entered again. + +"Dr. Veiga, sir." + +And Dr. Veiga came in. The friendship between Mr. Prohack and his +picturesque quack had progressed--so much so that Eve herself had begun +to twit her husband with having lost his head about the doctor. +Nevertheless Eve was privately very pleased with the situation, because +it proved that she had been right and Mr. Prohack wrong concerning the +qualities of the fat, untidy, ironic Portuguese. Mr. Prohack was +delighted to see him, for an interview with Dr. Veiga always meant an +unusual indulgence in the sweets of candour and realism. + +"This is my wife's doing, no doubt," said Mr. Prohack, limply shaking +hands. + +"She called to see me, ostensibly about herself, but of course in fact +about you. However, I thought she needed a tonic, and I'll write out the +prescription while I'm here. Now what's the matter with you?" + +"No!" Mr. Prohack burst out, "I'm hanged if I'll tell you. I'm not going +to do your work for you. Find out." + +Dr. Veiga examined, physically and orally, and then said: "There's +nothing at all the matter with you, my friend." + +"That's just where you're mistaken," Mr. Prohack retorted. "There's +something rather serious the matter with me. I'm suffering from grave +complications. Only you can't help me. My trouble is spiritual. Neither +pills nor tonics can touch it. But that doesn't make it any better." + +"Try me," said Dr. Veiga. "I'm admirable on the common physical +ailments, and by this time I should have been universally recognised as +a great man if common ailments were uncommon; because you know in my +profession you never get any honour unless you make a study of diseases +so rare that nobody has them. Discover a new disease, and save the life +of some solitary nigger who brought it to Liverpool, and you'll be a +baronet in a fortnight and a member of all the European academies in a +month. But study colds, indigestion and insomnia, and change a thousand +lives a year from despair to felicity, and no authority will take the +slightest notice of you ... As with physical, so with mental +diseases--or spiritual, if you like to call them so. You don't suspect +that in the common mental diseases I'm a regular benefactor of mankind; +but I am. I don't blame you for not knowing it, because you're about the +last person I should have thought susceptible to any mental disease, and +so you've had no chance of finding out. Now, what is it?" + +"Don't I tell you I'm suffering from horrible complications?" cried Mr. +Prohack. + +"What kind of complications?" + +"Every kind. My aim has always been to keep my life simple, and I +succeeded very well--perhaps too well--until I inherited money. I don't +mind money, but I do mind complications. I don't want a large +house--because it means complications. I desire Sissie's happiness, but +I hate weddings. I desire to be looked after, but I hate strange +servants. I can find pleasure in a motor-car, but I hate even the risk +of accidents. I have no objection to an income, but I hate investments. +And so on. All I ask is to live simply and sensibly, but instead of that +my existence is transformed into a quadratic equation. And I can't stop +it. My happiness is not increasing--it's decreasing. I spend more and +more time in wondering whither I am going, what I am after, and where +precisely is the point of being alive at all. That's a fact, and now you +know it." + +Dr. Veiga rose from his chair and deliberately sat down on the side of +his patient's bed. The gesture in itself was sufficiently +unprofessional, but he capped it with another of which probably no +doctor had ever been guilty in a British sick-room before; he pulled out +a pocket-knife and became his own manicure, surveying his somewhat +neglected hands with a benevolently critical gaze, smiling at them as if +to say: "What funny hands you are!" + +And Mr. Prohack felt that the doctor was saying: "What a funny Prohack +you are!" + +"My friend," said Dr. Veiga at length (with his voice), "my friend, I +will not conceal from you that your alarm was justified. You are +suffering from one of the commonest and one of the gravest mental +derangements. I'm surprised, but there it is. You haven't yet discovered +that it's the earth you're living on. You fancy it may be Sirius, +Uranus, Aldebaran or Jupiter--let us say Jupiter. Perhaps in one of +these worlds matters are ordered differently, and their truth is not our +truth; but let me assure you that the name of your planet is the Earth +and that on the earth one great unalterable truth prevails. Namely:--You +can't do this"--here Dr. Veiga held up a pared and finished finger and +wagged it to and fro with solemnity--"you can't do this without moving +your finger ... You were aware of this great truth? Then why are you +upset because you can't wag your finger without moving it?... Perhaps +I'm being too subtle for you. Let me put the affair in another way. +You've lost sight of the supreme earthly fact that everything has not +merely a consequence, but innumerable consequences. You knew when you +married that you were creating endless consequences, and now you want to +limit the consequences. You knew when you accepted a fortune that you +were creating endless consequences, and now you want to limit them too. +You want to alter the rules after the game has started. You set in +motion circumstances which were bound to influence the development of +the members of your family, and when the inevitable new developments +begin, you object, simply because you hadn't foreseen them. You knew +that money doesn't effectively exist until it's spent and that you can't +spend money without causing consequences, and when your family causes +consequences by bringing the money to life you complain that you're a +martyr to the consequences and that you hadn't bargained for +complications. My poor friend, you have made one crucial mistake in your +career,--the mistake of being born. Happily the mistake is curable. I +can give you several prescriptions. The first is prussic acid. If you +don't care for that you can donate the whole of your fortune to the +Sinking Fund for extinguishing the National Debt and you can return to +the Treasury. If you don't care for that you can leave your family +mysteriously and go and live in Timbuctoo by yourself. If you don't care +for that you can buy a whip and forbid your wife and daughter to grow +older or change in any way on pain of a hundred lashes. And if you don't +like that you can acquaint yourself with the axioms that neither you nor +anybody else are the centre of the universe and that what you call +complications are simply another name for life itself. Worry is life, +and life is worry. And the absence of worry is death. I won't say to you +that you're rich and beloved and therefore you've nothing to worry +about. I'll say to you, you've got a lot to worry about because you're +rich and beloved.... I'll leave the other hand for to-morrow." Dr. Veiga +snapped down the blade of the pocket-knife. + +"Platitudes!" ejaculated Mr. Prohack. + +"Certainly," agreed the quack. "But I've told you before that it's by +telling everybody what everybody knows that I earn my living." + +"I'll get up," said Mr. Prohack. + +"And not too soon," said the quack. "Get up by all means and deal with +your worries. All worries can be dealt with." + +"It doesn't make life any better," said Mr. Prohack. + +"Nothing makes life any better, except death--and there's a disgusting +rumour that there is no death. Where shall I find a pencil, my dear +fellow? I've forgotten mine, and I want to prescribe Mrs. Prohack's +tonic." + +"In the boudoir there," said Mr. Prohack. "What the deuce are you +smiling at?" + +"I'm smiling because I'm so glad to find you aren't so wise as you +look." And Dr. Veiga disappeared blithely into the boudoir. + +Almost at the same moment Mimi knocked and entered. She entered, stared +harshly at Mr. Prohack, and then the corners of her ruthless mouth +twitched and loosened and she began to cry. + +"Doctor," called Mr. Prohack, "come here at once." The doctor came. "You +say all worries can be dealt with? How should you deal with this one?" + +The doctor dropped a slip of paper on to the bed and walked silently out +of the room, precisely as Charlie had done. + + + +IV + +In regard to the effect of the sermon of Dr. Veiga on Mr. Prohack, it +was as if Mr. Prohack had been a desk with many drawers and one drawer +open, and the sermon had been dropped into the drawer and the drawer +slammed to and nonchalantly locked. The drawer being locked, Mr. Prohack +turned to the weeping figure in front of him, which suddenly ceased to +weep and became quite collected and normal. + +"Now, my child," said Mr. Prohack, "I have just been informed that +everything has a consequence. I've seen the consequence. What is the +thing?" + +He was rather annoyed by Mimi's tears, but in his dangerous +characteristic desire to please, he could not keep kindness out of his +tone, and Mimi, reassured and comforted, began feebly to smile, and also +Mr. Prohack remarked that her mouth was acquiring firmness again. + +"I ought to tell you in explanation of anything of a personal nature +that I may have said to him in your presence, that the gentleman just +gone is my medical adviser, and I have no secrets from him; in that +respect he stands equal with you and above everybody else in the world +without exception. So you must excuse my freedom in directing his +attention to you." + +"It's I who ought to apologise," said Miss Warburton, positively. "But +the fact is I hadn't the slightest idea that you weren't alone. I was +just a little bit upset because I understand that you want to get rid of +me." + +"Ah!" murmured Mr. Prohaek, "who put that notion into your absurd +head?" + +He knew he was exercising his charm, but he could not help it. + +"Mr. Charles. He's just been down to my room and told me." + +"I hope you remembered what I said to you about your duty so far as he +is concerned." + +"Of course, Mr. Prohack." She smiled anew; and her smile, so clever, so +self-reliant, so enigmatic, a little disturbed Mr. Prohack. + +"What did my son say to you?" + +"He said that he was urgently in need of a thoroughly competent +secretary at once--confidential--and that he was sure I was the very +woman to suit him, and that he would give me double the salary I was +getting." + +"Did you tell him how much you're getting?" + +"No." + +"Well, neither did I! And then?" + +"Then he told me all about his business, how big it was, and growing +quickly, too, and how he was after a young woman who had tact and +resource and could talk to any one from a bank director to a mechanic or +a clergyman, and that tens of thousands of pounds might often depend on +my tact, and that you wouldn't mind my being transferred from you to +him." + +"And I suppose he asked you to go off with him immediately?" + +"No, at the beginning of next week." + +"And what did you say?" demanded Mr. Prohack, amazed and frightened at +the manoeuvres of his unscrupulous son. + +"Naturally I said that I couldn't possibly leave you--unless you told me +to go, and that I owed everything to you. Then he asked me what I did +for you, and I said I was particularly busy at present making a schedule +of all your new purchases and checking the outfitters' accounts, and so +on. That reminds me, I haven't been able to get the neckties right yet." + +"Good heavens!" exclaimed Mr. Prohack. "Not been able to get the +neckties right! But this is very serious. The neckties are most +important. Most important!" + +"Oh!" said Mimi. "If necessary I shall run round to Bond Street in my +lunch-hour." + +At this point the drawer in the desk started to unlock itself and open +of its own accord, and Mr. Prohack's eye caught a glimpse of a page of +the sermon. + +Mimi continued: + +"We mustn't forget there'll be hundreds of things to see to about the +new house." + +"Will there?" + +"Well, Mrs. Prohack told Machin, and Machin has just told me, that it's +all settled about taking the house. And I know what taking a house is. +Mr. Carrel Quire was always taking new houses." + +"But perhaps you could keep an eye on the house even if you went over to +Mr. Charles?" + +"Then it's true," said Mimi. "You do want me to go." But she showed no +sign of weeping afresh. + +"You must understand," Mr. Prohack said with much benevolence, "that my +son is my son. Of course my clothes are also my clothes. But Charles is +in a difficult position. He's at the beginning of his career, whereas +I'm at the end of mine. He needs all the help he can get, and he can +afford to pay more than I can. And even at the cost of having to check +my own neckties I shouldn't like to stand in his way. That's how I look +at it. Mind you, I have certainly not told Charlie that I'll set you +free." + +"I quite see," said Mimi. "And naturally if you put it like that--" + +"You'll still be in the family." + +"I shall be very sorry to leave you, Mr. Prohack." + +"Doubtless. But you'll be even gladder to go over to Charles, though +with him you'll be more like a kettle tied to the tail of a mad dog than +a confidential secretary." + +Mimi raised the tip of her nose. + +"Excuse me, Mr. Prohack, I shall _not_ be gladder to go over to Mr. +Charles. Any girl will tell you that she prefers to work for a man of +your age than for a boy. Boys are not interesting." + +"Yes," murmured Mr. Prohack. "A comfortable enough theory. And I've +already heard it more than once from girls. But I've never seen any +confirmation of it in practice. And I don't believe it. I'll tell you +something about yourself you don't know. You're delighted to go over to +my son. And if I'd refused to let you go I should have had a martyr +instead of a secretary. You want adventure. You want a field for your +remarkable talent for conspiracy and chicane. You know by experience +there's little scope for it here. But under my son your days will be +breathless.... No, no! I don't wish to hear anything. Run away and get +on with your work. And you can telephone my decision to Charles. I'm now +going to get up and wear all my new neckties at once." + +Miss Warburton departed in a state of emotion. + +As, with all leisureliness, Mr. Prohack made himself beautiful to +behold, he reflected: "I'm very impulsive. I've simply thrown that girl +into the arms of that boy. Eve will have something to say about it. +Still, there's one complication off my chest." + +Eve returned home as he was descending the stairs, and she blew him +upstairs again and shut the door of the bedroom and pushed him into the +privacy of the boudoir. + +"It's all settled," said she. "I've signed the tenancy agreement for a +year. Charlie said I could, and it would save you trouble. It doesn't +matter the cheque for the first half-year's rent being signed by you, +only of course the house will be in my name. How handsome you are, +darling!" And she kissed him and re-tied one of the new cravats. "But +that's not what I wanted to tell you, darling." Her face grew grave. "Do +you know I'm rather troubled about Charlie--and your friend Lady +Massulam. They're off again this morning." + +"My friend?" + +"Well, you know she adores you. It would be perfectly awful +if--if--well, you understand what I mean. I hear she really is a widow, +so that--well, you understand what I mean! I'm convinced she's at least +thirty years older than Charlie. But you see she's French, and French +women are so clever.... You can never be sure with them." + +"Fluttering heart," said Mr. Prohack, suddenly inspired. "Don't get +excited. I've thought of all that already, and I've taken measures to +guard against it. I'm going to give Charlie my secretary. She'll see +that Lady Massulam doesn't make any more headway, trust her!" + +"Arthur, how clever you are! Nobody but you would have thought of that. +But isn't it a bit dangerous, too? You see--don't you?" + +Mr. Prohack shook his head. + +"I gather you've been reading the love-story in _The Daily Picture_," +said he. "In _The Daily Picture_ the typist always marries the +millionaire. But outside _The Daily Picture_ I doubt whether these +romantic things really happen. There are sixty-five thousand girls +typists in the City alone, besides about a million in Whitehall. The +opportunities for espousing millionaires and ministers of state are +countless. But no girl-typist has been married at St. George's, Hanover +Square, since typewriters were invented." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +ROMANCE + +I + + +The very next day Mr. Prohack had a plutocratic mood of overbearingness, +which led to a sudden change in his location--the same being transferred +to Frinton-on-Sea. The mood was brought about by a visit to the City, at +the summons of Paul Spinner; and the visit included conversations not +only with Paul, but with Smathe and Smathe, the solicitors, and with a +firm of stockbrokers. Paul handed over to his crony saleable securities, +chiefly in the shape of scrip of the greatest oil-combine and its +subsidiaries, for a vast amount, and advised Mr. Prohack to hold on to +them, as, owing to the present depression due to the imminence of a +great strike, they were likely to be "marked higher" before Mr. Prohack +was much older. Mr. Prohack declined the advice, and he also declined +the advice of solicitors and stockbrokers, who were both full of wisdom +and of devices for increasing capital values. What these firms knew +about the future, and about the consequences of causes and about "the +psychology of the markets" astounded the simple Terror of the +departments; and it was probably unanswerable. But, being full of +riches, Mr. Prohack did not trouble to answer it; he merely swept it +away with a tyrannical and impatient gesture, which gesture somehow +mysteriously established him at once as a great authority on the art of +investment. + +"Now listen to me," said he imperiously, and the manipulators of shares +listened, recalling to themselves that Mr. Prohack had been a Treasury +official for over twenty years and must therefore be worth +hearing--although the manipulators commonly spent many hours a week in +asserting, in the press and elsewhere, that Treasury officials +comprehended naught of finance. "Now listen to me. I don't care a hang +about my capital. It may decrease or increase, and I shan't care. All I +care for is my interest. I want to be absolutely sure that my interest +will tumble automatically into my bank on fixed dates. No other +consideration touches me. I'm not a gambler. I'm not a usurer. +Industrial development leaves me cold, and if I should ever feel any +desire to knit the Empire closer together I'll try to do it without +making a profit out of it. At the moment all I'm after is certain, sure, +fixed interest. Hence--Government securities, British Government or +Colonial! Britain is of course rotten to the core, always was, always +will be. Still, I'll take my chances. I'm infernally insular where +investment is concerned. There's one thing to be said about the British +Empire--you do know where you are in it. And I don't mind some municipal +stocks. I even want some. I can conceive the smash-up of the British +Empire, but I cannot conceive Manchester defaulting in its interest +payments. Can you?" And he looked round and paused for a reply, and no +reply came. Nobody dared to boast himself capable of conceiving +Manchester's default. + +Towards the end of the arduous day Mr. Prohack departed from the City, +leaving behind him an immense reputation for financial sagacity, and a +scheme of investment under which he could utterly count upon a modest +regular income of L17,000 per annum. He was sacrificing over L5,000 per +annum in order to be free from an investor's anxieties, and he reckoned +that his peace of mind was cheap at a hundred pounds a week. This detail +alone shows to what an extent the man's taste for costly luxuries had +grown. + +Naturally he arrived home swollen. Now it happened that Eve also, by +reason of her triumph in regard to the house in Manchester Square, had +swelled head. A conflict of individualities occurred. A trifle, even a +quite pleasant trifle! Nothing that the servants might not hear with +advantage. But before you could say 'knife' Mr. Prohack had said that he +would go away for a holiday and abandon Eve to manage the removal to +Manchester Square how she chose, and Eve had leapt on to the challenge +and it was settled that Mr. Prohack should go to Frinton-on-Sea. + +Eve selected Frinton-on-Sea for him because Dr. Veiga had recommended it +for herself. She had a broad notion of marriage as a commonwealth. She +loved to take Mr. Prohack's medicines, and she was now insisting on his +taking her watering-places. Mr. Prohack said that the threatened great +strike might prevent his journey. Pooh! She laughed at such fears. She +drove him herself to Liverpool Street. + +"You may see your friend Lady Massulam," said she, as the car entered +the precincts of the station. (Once again he was struck by the words +'your friend' prefixed to Lady Massulam; but he offered no comment on +them.) + +"Why Lady Massulam?" he asked. + +"Didn't you know she's got a house at Frinton?" replied Mrs. Prohack. +"Everybody has in these days. It's the thing." + +She didn't see him into the train, because she was in a hurry about +butlers. Mr. Prohack was cast loose in the booking-hall and had a fine +novel sensation of freedom. + + +II + +Never since marriage had he taken a holiday alone--never desired to do +so. He felt himself to be on the edge of romance. Frinton, for example, +presented itself as a city of romance. He knew it not, knew scarcely any +English seaside, having always managed to spend his holidays abroad; but +Frinton must, he was convinced, be strangely romantic. The train thither +had an aspect which strengthened this conviction. It consisted largely +of first-class coaches, and in the window of nearly every first-class +compartment and saloon was exhibited a notice: "This compartment (or +saloon) is reserved for members of the North Essex Season-Ticket-Holders +Association." Mr. Prohack, being still somewhat swollen, decided that he +was a member of the North Essex Season-Ticket-Holders Association and +acted accordingly. Otherwise he might never have reached Frinton. + +He found himself in a sort of club, about sixty feet by six, where +everybody knew everybody except Mr. Prohack, and where cards and other +games, tea and other drinks, tobacco and other weeds, were being played +and consumed in an atmosphere of the utmost conviviality. Mr. Prohack +was ignored, but he was not objected to. His fellow-travellers regarded +him cautiously, as a new chum. The head attendant and dispenser was very +affable, as to a promising neophyte. Only the ticket-inspector singled +him out from all the rest by stopping in front of him. + +"My last hour has come," thought Mr. Prohack as he produced his +miserable white return-ticket. + +All stared; the inspector stared; but nothing happened. Mr. Prohack had +a sense of reprieve, and also of having been baptised or inducted into a +secret society. He listened heartily to forty conversations about +physical diversions and luxuries and about the malignant and fatuous +wrong-headedness of men who went on strike, and about the approaching +catastrophic end of all things. + +Meanwhile, at any rate in the coach, the fabric of society seemed to be +holding together fairly well. Before the train was half-way to Frinton +Mr. Prohack judged--and rightly--that he was already there. The fact was +that he had been there ever since entering the saloon. After two hours +the train, greatly diminished in length, came to rest in the midst of a +dark flatness, and the entire population of the coach vanished out of it +in the twinkling of an eye, and Mr. Prohack saw the name 'Frinton' on a +flickering oil-lamp, and realised that he was at the gates of the most +fashionable resort in England, a spot where even the ozone was +exclusive. The station staff marvelled at him because he didn't know +where the Majestic Hotel was and because he asked without notice for a +taxi, fly, omnibus or anything on wheels. All the other passengers had +disappeared. The exclusive ozone was heavy with exciting romance for Mr. +Prohack as the station staff considered his unique and incomprehensible +case. Then a tiny omnibus materialised out of the night. + +"Is this the Majestic bus?" Mr. Prohack enquired of the driver. + +"Well, it is if you like, sir," the driver answered. + +Mr. Prohack did like.... + +The Majestic was large and prim, resembling a Swiss hotel in its +furniture, the language and composition of the menu, the dialect of the +waiters; but it was about fifteen degrees colder than the highest hotel +in Switzerland. The dining-room was shaded with rose-shaded lamps and it +susurrated with the polite whisperings of elegant couples and trios, and +the entremet was cabinet pudding: a fine display considering the depth +of winter and of the off-season. + +Mr. Prohack went off after dinner for a sharp walk in the east wind. +Solitude! Blackness! Night! East wind in the bushes of gardens that +shielded the facades of large houses! Not a soul! Not a policeman! He +descended precariously to the vast, smooth beach. The sound of the sea! +Romance! Mr. Prohack seemed to walk for miles, like Ozymandias, on the +lone and level sands. Then he fancied he descried a moving object. He +was not mistaken. It approached him. It became a man and a woman. It +became a man and a young woman arm-in-arm and soul-in-soul. And there +was nothing but the locked couple, and the sound of the invisible, +immeasurable sea, and the east wind, and Mr. Prohack. Romance thrilled +through Mr. Prohack's spine. + +"So I said to him," the man was saying to the young woman as the pair +passed Mr. Prohack, "I said to him 'I could do with a pint o' that,' I +said." + + + + +III + + +The next morning Mr. Prohack rose with alacrity from a hard bed, and was +greeted in the hall by the manager of the hotel, an enormous, +middle-aged, sun-burnt, jolly person in flannels and an incandescent +blazer, who asked him about his interests in golf and hard-court tennis. +Mr. Prohack, steeped as he felt himself to be in strange romance, was +prepared to be interested in these games, but the self-protective +instinct warned him that since these games could not be played alone +they would, if he indulged in them, bring him into contact with people +who might prove tedious. He therefore changed the conversation and asked +whether he could have strawberry jam to his breakfast. The manager's +face instantly changed, hardening to severity. Was Mr. Prohack +eccentric? Did he desire to disturb the serene habits of the hotel? The +manager promised to see. He did see, and announced that he was 'afraid' +that Mr. Prohack could not have strawberry jam to his breakfast. And Mr. +Prohack said to himself: "What would my son Charles have done?" During a +solitary breakfast (with blackberry jam) in the huge dining-room, Mr. +Prohack decided that Charles would have approached the manager +differently. + +After breakfast he saw the manager again, and he did not enquire from +the manager whether there was any chance of hiring a motor-car. He said +briefly: + +"I want to hire a car, please. It must be round here in half an hour, +sharp." + +"I will attend to the matter myself," said the manager humbly. + +The car kept the rendezvous, and Mr. Prohack inspected Frinton from the +car. He admired the magnificent reserve of Frinton, which was the most +English place he had ever seen. The houses gave nothing away; the +shivering shopping ladies in the streets gave nothing away; and +certainly the shops gave nothing away. The newspaper placards announced +what seemed to be equivalent to the end of the existing social order; +but Frinton apparently did not blench nor tremble; it went calmly and +powerfully forward into the day (which was Saturday), relying upon the +great British axiom: "To ignore is to destroy." It ignored the end of +the existing social order, and lo! there was no end. Up and down various +long and infinitely correct avenues of sheltered homes drove Mr. +Prohack, and was everywhere baffled in his human desire to meet Frinton +half-way. He stopped the car at the Post Office and telegraphed to his +wife: "No strawberry jam in this city. Love. Arthur." The girl behind +the counter said: "One and a penny, please," and looked hard at him. +Five minutes later he returned to the Post Office and telegraphed to his +wife: "Omitted to say in previous telegram that Frinton is the greatest +expression of Anglo-Saxon character I have ever encountered. Love. +Arthur." The girl behind the counter said: "Two and three, please," +stared harder at him, and blushed. Perceiving the blush, Mr. Prohack at +once despatched a third telegram to his wife: "But it has charming +weaknesses. Love. Arthur." Extraordinarily happy and gay, he drove out +of Frinton to see the remainder of North East Essex in the enheartening +east wind. + +In the evening he fell asleep in the lounge while waiting for dinner, +having dressed a great deal too soon and being a great deal too full of +east wind. When he woke up he noticed a different atmosphere in the +hotel. Youth and brightness had entered it. The lounge had vivacity and +expectation; and Mr. Prohack learned that Saturday night was gala, with +a dance and special bridge. Not even the news that the star-guest of the +hotel, Lord Partick, was suddenly indisposed and confined to his room +could dash the new optimism of the place. + +At dinner the manager walked around the little tables and gorgeously +babbled with diners about the sportive feats of the day. And Mr. +Prohack, seeing that his own turn was coming, began to feel as if he was +on board a ship. He feared the worst and the worst came. + +"Perhaps you'd like to make a fourth at bridge. If so--" said the +manager jollily. "Or perhaps you dance. If so--" + +Mr. Prohack shut his eyes and gave forth vague affirmatives. + +And as soon as the manager had left him he gazed around the room at the +too-blonde women young and old and wondered fearfully which would be his +portion for bridge or dance. In the lounge after dinner he ignited a +cigar and watched the lighting up of the ball-room (ordinarily the +drawing-room) and the entry of the musicians therein. Then he observed +the manager chatting with two haughty beldames and an aged gentleman, +and they all three cast assaying glances upon Mr. Prohack, and Mr. +Prohack knew that he had been destined for bridge, not dancing, and the +manager moved towards him, and Mr. Prohack breathed his last sigh but +one.... + +But the revolving doors at the entrance revolved, and out of the +Frintonian night appeared Lady Massulam, magnificently enveloped. Seldom +had Mr. Prohack's breast received a deeper draught of mingled +astonishment and solace. Hitherto he had not greatly cared for Lady +Massulam, and could not see what Charlie saw in her. Now he saw what +Charlie saw and perhaps more also. She had more than dignity,--she had +style. And she femininely challenged. She was like a breeze on the +French shore to a British barque cruising dully in the Channel. She +welcomed the sight of Mr. Prohack, and her greeting of him made a +considerable change in the managerial attitude towards the unassuming +Terror of the departments. The manager respectfully informed Lady +Massulam that Lord Partick was indisposed, and respectfully took himself +off. Lady Massulam and Mr. Prohack then proceeded to treat each other +like new toys. Mr. Prohack had to explain why he was at Frinton, and +Lady Massulam explained that whenever she was in Frinton at the week-end +she always came to the Majestic to play bridge with old Lord Partick. It +flattered him; she liked him, though he had bought his peerage; he was a +fine player--so was she; and lastly they had had business relations, and +financially Lord Partick watched over her as over a young girl. + +Mr. Prohack was relieved thus to learn that Lady Massulam had not +strolled into the Majestic Hotel, Frinton, to play bridge with nobody in +particular. Still, she was evidently well known to the habitues, several +of whom approached to greet her. She temporised with them in her calm +Latin manner, neither encouraging nor discouraging their advances, and +turning back to Mr. Prohack by her side at every surcease. + +"We shall be compelled to play bridge if we do not take care," she +murmured in his ear, as a dowager larger than herself loomed up. + +"Yes," murmured Mr. Prohack, "I've been feeling the danger ever since +dinner. Will you dance with me,--not of course as a pleasure--I won't +flatter myself--but as a means of salvation?" + +The dowager bore down with a most definite suggestion for bridge in the +card-room. Lady Massulam definitely stated that she was engaged to +dance.... + +Well, of course Lady Massulam was something of a galleon herself; but +she was a beautiful dancer; that is to say, she responded perfectly to +the male volition; she needed no pushing and no pulling; she moved under +his will as lightly as a young girl. Her elaborately dressed hair had an +agreeable scent; her complexion was a highly successful achievement; +everything about her had a quiet and yet a dazzling elegance which had +been obtained regard-less of expense. As for her figure, it was on a +considerable scale, but its important contours had a soft and delicate +charm. And all that was nothing in the estimation of Mr. Prohack +compared with her glance. At intervals in the fox-trot he caught the +glance. It was arch, flirtatious, eternally youthful, challenging; and +it expressed pleasure in the fox-trot. Mr. Prohack was dancing better +than ever before in his career as a dancer. She made him dance better. +She was not the same woman whom he had first met at lunch at the Grand +Babylon Hotel. She was a new revelation, packed with possibilities. Mr. +Prohack recalled his wife's phrase: "You know she adores you." He hadn't +known. Honestly such an idea had not occurred to him. But did she adore +him? Not "adore"--naturally--but had she a bit of a fancy for him? + +Mr. Prohack became the youngest man in the room,--an extraordinary case +of rejuvenescence. He surveyed the room with triumph. He sniffed up the +brassy and clicking music into his vibrating nostrils. He felt no envy +of any man in the room. When the band paused he clapped like a child for +another dose of fox-trot. At the end of the third dose they were both a +little breathless and they had ices. After a waltz they both realised +that excess would be imprudent, and returned to the lounge. + +"I wish you'd tell me something about my son," said Mr. Prohack. "I +think you must be the greatest living authority on him." + +"Here?" exclaimed Lady Massulam. + +"Anywhere. Any time." + +"It would be safer at my house," said Lady Massulam. "But before I go I +must just write a little note to Lord Partick. He will expect it." + +That was how she invited him to The Lone Cedar, the same being her +famous bungalow on the Front. + + +IV + +"Your son," said Lady Massulam, in a familiar tone, but most +reassuringly like an aunt of Charlie's, after she had explained how they +had met in Glasgow through being distantly connected by the same +business deal, and how she had been impressed by Charlie's youthful +capacity, "your son has very great talent for big affairs, but he is now +playing a dangerous game--far more dangerous than he imagines, and he +will not be warned. He is selling something he hasn't got before he +knows what price he will have to pay for it." + +"Ah!" breathed Mr. Prohack. + +They were sitting together in the richly ornamented bungalow +drawing-room, by the fire. Lady Massulam sat up straight in her sober +and yet daring evening frock. Mr. Prohack lounged with formless grace in +a vast easy-chair neighbouring a whiskey-and-soda. She had not asked him +to smoke; he did not smoke, and he had no wish to smoke. She was a +gorgeously mature specimen of a woman. He imagined her young, and he +decided that he preferred the autumn to the spring. She went on talking +of finance. + +"She is moving in regions that Eve can never know," he thought. "But how +did Eve perceive that she had taken a fancy to me?" + +The alleged danger to Charlie scarcely disturbed him. Her appreciation +or depreciation of Charlie interested him only in so far as it was a +vehicle for the expression of her personality. He had never met such a +woman. He responded to her with a vivacity that surprised himself. He +looked surreptitiously round the room, brilliantly lighted here, and +there obscure, and he comprehended how every detail of its varied +sumptuosity aptly illustrated her mind and heart. His own heart was full +of quite new sensations. + +"Of course," she was saying, "if Charles is to become the really great +figure that he might be, he will have to cure his greatest fault, and +perhaps it is incurable." + +"I know what that is," said Mr. Prohack, softly but positively. + +"What is it?" Her glance met his. + +"His confounded reserve, lack of elasticity, lack of adaptability. The +old British illusion that everything will come to him who won't budge. +Why, it's a ten-horse-power effort for him even to smile!" + +Lady Massulam seemed to leap from her chair, and she broke swiftly into +French: + +"Oh! You comprehend then, you? If you knew what I have suffered in your +terrible England! But you do not suspect what I have suffered! I advance +myself. They retire before me. I advance myself again. They retire +again. I open. They close. Do they begin? Never! It is always I who must +begin! Do I make a natural gesture--they say to themselves, 'What a +strange woman! How indiscreet! But she is foreign.' They lift their +shoulders. Am I frank--they pity me. They give themselves never! They +are shut like their lips over their long teeth. Ah, but they have taught +me. In twenty years have I not learnt the lesson? There is nobody among +you who can be more shut-tight than me. I flatter myself that I can be +more terrible than any English woman or man. You do not catch me now! +But what a martyrdom!... I might return to France? No! I am become too +English. In Paris I should resemble an _emigree_. And people would say: +'What is that? It is like nothing at all. It has no name.' Besides, I +like you English. You are terrible, but one can count on you.... _Vous y +etes?_" + +"_J'y suis_," replied Mr. Prohack, ravished. + +Lady Massulam in her agitation picked up the tumbler and sipped. + +"Pardon!" she cried, aghast. "It is yours," and planked the tumbler down +again on the lacquered table. + +Mr. Prohack had the wit to drink also. They went on talking.... A silver +tongue vibrated from the hall with solemn British deliberation--One! +Two! The air throbbed to the sound for many seconds. + +"Good heavens!" exclaimed Mr. Prohack, rising in alarm. "And this is +Frinton!" She let him out herself, with all soft precautions against +shocking the Frintonian world. His manner of regaining the Majestic +Hotel can only be described by saying that he 'effected an entrance' +into it. He went to bed but not to sleep. + +"What the deuce has happened to me?" he asked himself amazed. "Is it +anything serious? Or am I merely English after all?" + + +V + +Late the next morning, when he was dreaming, a servant awoke him with +the information that a chauffeur was demanding him. But he was sleepy +and slept again. Between noon and one o'clock he encountered the +chauffeur. It was Carthew, who stated that his mistress had sent him +with the car. She felt that he would need the car to go about in. As for +her, she would manage without it. + +Mr. Prohack remained silent for a few moments and then said: + +"Be ready to start in a quarter of an hour." + +"Before lunch, sir?" + +"Before lunch." + +Mr. Prohack paid his bill and packed. + +"Which way, sir?" Carthew asked, as the Eagle moved from under the +portico of the hotel. + +"There is only one road out of Frinton," said Mr. Prohack. "It's the +road you came in by. Take it. I want to get off as quickly as possible. +The climate of this place is the most dangerous and deceptive I was ever +in." + +"Really, sir!" responded Carthew, polite but indifferent. "The east wind +I suppose, sir?" + +"Not at all. The south wind." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +A HOMELESS NIGHT + +I + + +How exhilarating (Mr. Prohack found it) to be on the road without a +destination! It was Sunday morning, and the morning was marvellous for +the time of year. Mr. Prohack had had a very fine night, and he now felt +a curious desire to defy something or somebody, to defend himself, and +to point out, if any one accused him of cowardice, that he had not +retreated from danger until after he had fairly affronted it. More +curious still was the double, self-contradictory sensation of feeling +both righteous and sinful. He would have spurned a charge of wickedness, +and yet the feeling of being wicked was really very jolly. He seemed to +have begun a new page of life, and then to have ripped the page +away--and possibly spoilt the whole book. Deference to Eve, of course! +Respect for Eve! Or was it merely that he must always be able to look +Eve in the face? In sending the car for his idle use, Eve had performed +a master-stroke which laid him low by its kindliness, its wifeliness, +its touches of perverse self-sacrifice and of vague, delicate malice. +Lady Massulam hung in the vast hollow of his mind, a brilliant and +intensely seductive figure; but Eve hung there too, and Mr. Prohack was +obliged to admit that the simple Eve was holding her own. + +"My sagacity is famous," said Mr. Prohack to himself. "And I never +showed more of it than in leaving Frinton instantly. Few men would have +had the sense and the resolution to do it." And he went on praising +himself to himself. Such was the mood of this singular man. + +Hunger--Mr. Prohack's hunger--drew them up at Frating, a village a few +miles short of Colchester. The inn at Frating had been constructed ages +earlier entirely without reference to the fact that it is improper for +certain different types of humanity to eat or drink in each other's +presence. In brief, there was obviously only one dining-room, and not a +series of dining-rooms classified according to castes. Mr. Prohack, +free, devil-may-care and original, said to his chauffeur: + +"You'd better eat with me, Carthew." + +"You're very kind, sir," said Carthew, and at once sat down and ceased +to be a chauffeur. + +"Well, I haven't been seeing much of you lately," Mr. Prohack edged +forward into the fringes of intimacy when three glasses of beer and +three slices of Derby Round had been unequally divided between them, +"have I?" + +"No, sir." + +Mr. Prohack had in truth been seeing Carthew almost daily; but on this +occasion he used the word "see" in a special sense. + +"That boy of yours getting on all right?" + +"Pretty fair, considering he's got no mother, if you understand what I +mean, sir," replied Carthew, pushing back his chair, stretching out his +legs, and picking his teeth with a fork. + +"Ah! yes!" said Mr. Prohack commiseratingly. "Very awkward situation for +you, that is." + +"It isn't awkward for me, sir. It's my boy it's awkward for. I'm as +right as rain." + +"No chance of the lady coming back, I suppose?" + +"Well, she'd better not try," said Carthew grimly. + +"But does this mean you've done with the sex, at your age?" cried Mr. +Prohack. + +"I don't say as I've _done_ with the sex, sir. Male and female created +He them, as the good old Book says; and I'm not going behind that. No, +not me! All I say is, I'm as right as rain--_for_ the present--and she'd +better not try." + +"I bet you anything you won't keep it up," said Mr. Prohack, impetuously +exceeding the limits of inter-caste decorum. + +"Keep what up?" + +"This attitude of yours." + +"I won't bet, sir," said Carthew. "Because nobody can see round a +corner. But I promise you I'll never take a woman _seriously_ again. +That's the mistake we make, taking 'em seriously. You see, sir, being a +chauffeur in the early days of motor-cars, I've had a tidy bit of +experience, if you understand what I mean. Because in them days a +chauffeur was like what an air-pilot is to-day. He didn't have to ask, +he didn't. And what I say is this--I say we're mugs to take 'em +seriously." + +"You think we are!" bubbled Mr. Prohack emptily, perceiving that he had +to do with an individual whom misfortune had rendered impervious to +argument. + +"I do, sir. And what's more, I say you never know where you are with any +woman." + +"That I agree with," said Mr. Prohack, with a polite show of eagerness. +"But you're cutting yourself off from a great deal you know, Carthew," +he added, thinking magnificently upon his adventure with Lady Massulam. + +"There's a rare lot as would like to be in my place," murmured Carthew +with bland superiority. "If it's all the same to you, sir, I'll just go +and give her a look over before we start again." He scraped his chair +cruelly over the wood floor, rose, and ceased to be an authority on +women. + +It was while exercising his privilege of demanding, awaiting, and paying +the bill, that Mr. Prohack happened to see, at the other end of the +long, empty dining-room table, a copy of _The Sunday Picture_, which was +the Sabbath edition of _The Daily Picture_. He got up and seized it, +expecting it to be at least a week old. It proved, however, to be as new +and fresh as it could be. Mr. Prohack glanced with inimical tolerance at +its pages, until his eye encountered the portraits of two ladies, both +known to him, side by side. One was Miss Eliza Fiddle, the rage of the +West End, and the other was Mrs. Arthur Prohack, wife of the well-known +Treasury official. The portraits were juxtaposed, it seemed, because +Miss Eliza Fiddle had just let her lovely home in Manchester Square to +Mrs. Arthur Prohack. + +The shock of meeting Eve in _The Sunday Picture_ was terrible, but +equally terrible to Mr. Prohack was the discovery of his ignorance in +regard to the ownership of the noble mansion. He had understood--or more +correctly he had been given to understand--that the house and its +contents belonged to a certain peer, whose taste in the arts was as +celebrated as that of his lordly forefathers had been. Assuredly neither +Eliza Fiddle nor anybody like her could have been responsible for the +exquisite decorations and furnishings of that house. On the other hand, +it would have been very characteristic of Eliza Fiddle to leave the +house as carelessly as it had been left, with valuable or invaluable +bibelots lying about all over the place. Almost certainly Eliza Fiddle +must have had some sort of effective ownership of the place. He knew +that dazzling public favourites did sometimes enjoy astounding and +mysterious luck in the matter of luxurious homes, and that some of them +progressed through a series of such homes, each more inexplicable than +the last. He would not pursue the enquiry, even in his own mind. He had +of course no grudge against the efficient and strenuous Eliza, for he +was perfectly at liberty not to pay money in order to see her. She must +be an exceedingly clever woman; and it was not in him to cast stones. +Yet, Pharisaical snob, he did most violently resent that she should be +opposite his wife in _The Sunday Picture...._ Eve! Eve! A few short +weeks ago, and you made a mock of women who let themselves get into _The +Daily Picture_. And now you are there yourself! (But so, and often, was +the siren Lady Massulam! A ticklish thing, criticism of life!) + +And there was another point, as sharp as any. Ozzie Morfey must have +known, Charlie must have known, Sissie must have known, Eve herself must +have known, that the _de facto_ owner of the noble mansion was Eliza +Fiddle. And none had vouchsafed the truth to him. + +"We'll struggle back to town I think," said Mr. Prohack to Carthew, with +a pitiable affectation of brightness. And instead of sitting by +Carthew's side, as previously, he sat behind, and reflected upon the +wisdom of Carthew. He had held that Carthew's views were warped by a +peculiar experience. He now saw that they were not warped at all, but +shapely, sane and incontrovertible. + + +II + +That evening, soon after dark, the Eagle, dusty and unkempt from a +journey which had not been free from mishaps, rolled up to the +front-door of Mr. Prohack's original modest residence behind Hyde Park; +and Mr. Prohack jumped out; and Carthew came after him with two bags. +The house was as dark as the owner's soul; not a gleam of light in any +window. Mr. Prohack produced his familiar latch-key, scraped round the +edge of the key-hole, savagely pushed in the key, and opened the door. +There was still no light nor sign of life. Mr. Prohack paused on the +threshold, and then his hand instinctively sought the electric switch +and pulled it down. No responsive gleam! + +"Machin!" called Mr. Prohack, as it were plaintively. + +No sound. + +"I am a fool," thought Mr. Prohack. + +He struck a match and walked forward delicately, peering. He descried an +empty portmanteau lying on the stairs. He shoved against the dining-room +door, which was ajar, and lit another match, and started back. The +dining-room was full of ghosts, furniture sheeted in dust-sheets; and a +newspaper had been made into a cap over his favourite Chippendale clock. +He retreated. + +"Put those bags into the car again," he said to Carthew, who stood +hesitant on the vague whiteness of the front-step. + +How much did Carthew know? Mr. Prohack was too proud to ask. Carthew +was no longer an authority on women lunching with an equal; he was a +servitor engaged and paid on the clear understanding that he should not +speak until spoken to. + +"Drive to Claridge's Hotel," said Mr. Prohack. + +"Yes, sir." + +At the entrance to the hotel the party was received by gigantic +uniformed guards with all the respect due to an Eagle. Ignoring the +guards, Mr. Prohack passed imperially within to the reception office. + +"I want a bedroom, a sitting-room and a bath-room, please." + +"A private suite, sir?" + +"A private suite." + +"What--er--kind, sir? We have--" + +"The best," said Mr. Prohack, with finality. He signed his name and +received a ticket. + +"Please have my luggage taken out of the car, and tell my chauffeur I +shall want him at ten o'clock to-morrow morning, and that he should take +the car to the hotel-garage, wherever it is, and sleep here. I will have +some tea at once in my sitting-room." + +The hotel-staff, like all hotel-staffs, loved a customer who knew his +mind with precision and could speak it. Mr. Prohack was admirably +served. + +After tea he took a bath because he could think of nothing else to do. +The bath, as baths will, inspired him with an idea. He set out on foot +to Manchester Square, and having reached the Square cautiously followed +the side opposite to the noble mansion. The noble mansion blazed with +lights through the wintry trees. It resembled the set-piece of a +pyrotechnic display. Mr. Prohack shivered in the dank evening. Then he +observed that blinds and curtains were being drawn in the noble mansion, +shutting out from its superb nobility the miserable, crude, +poverty-stricken world. With the exception of the glow in the fan light +over the majestic portals, the noble mansion was now as dark as Mr. +Prohack's other house. + +He shut his lips, steeled himself, and walked round the Square to the +noble mansion and audaciously rang the bell. He had to wait. He shook +guiltily, as though he, and no member of his family, had sinned. A +little more, and his tongue would have cleaved to the gold of his upper +denture. The double portals swung backwards. Mr. Prohack beheld the +portly form of an intensely traditional butler, and behind the butler a +vista of outer and inner halls and glimpses of the soaring staircase. He +heard, somewhere in the distance of the interior, the ringing laugh of +his daughter Sissie. + +The butler looked carelessly down upon him, and, as Mr. Prohack uttered +no word, challenged him. + +"Yes, sir?" + +"Is Mrs. Prohack at home?" + +"No, sir." (Positively.) + +"Is Miss Prohack at home?" + +"No, sir." (More positively.) + +"Oh!" + +"Will you leave your name, sir?" + +"No." + +Abruptly Mr. Prohack turned away. He had had black moments in his life. +This was the blackest. + +Of course he might have walked right in, and said to the butler: "Here's +a month's wages. Hook it." But he was a peculiar fellow, verging +sometimes on silliness. He merely turned away. The vertiginous rapidity +of his wife's developments, manoeuvres and transformations had dazed him +into a sort of numbed idiocy. In two days, in a day, with no warning to +him of her extraordinary precipitancy, she had 'flitted'! + +At Claridge's, through giving Monsieur Charles, the _maitre d' hotel_, +carte blanche in the ordering of his dinner and then only half-eating +his dinner, Mr. Prohack failed somewhat to maintain his prestige, though +he regained ground towards the end by means of champagne and liqueurs. +The black-and-gold restaurant was full of expensive persons who were +apparently in ignorance of the fact that the foundations of the social +fabric had been riven. They were all gay; the music was gay; everything +was gay except Mr. Prohack--the sole living being in the place who +conformed in face and heart to the historical conception of the British +Sunday. + +But Mr. Prohack was not now a man,--he was a grievance; he was the most +deadly kind of grievance, the irrational kind. A superlatively fine +cigar did a little--not much--to solace him. He smoked it with +scientific slowness, and watched the restaurant empty itself.... He was +the last survivor in the restaurant; and fifteen waiters and two hundred +and fifty electric lamps were keeping him in countenance. Then his +wandering, enfeebled attention heard music afar off, and he remembered +some remark of Sissie's to the effect that Claridge's was the best place +for dancing in London on Sunday nights. He would gaze Byronically upon +the dance. He signed his bill and mooned towards the ball-room, which +was full of radiant couples: a dazzling scene, fit to mark the end of an +epoch and of a society. + +The next thing was that he had an absurd delusion of seeing Sissie and +Charlie locked together amid the couples. He might have conquered this +delusion, but it was succeeded by another,--the illusion of seeing Ozzie +Morfey and Eve locked together amid the couples.... Yes, they were +there, all four of them. At first Mr. Prohack was amazed, as at an +unprecedented coincidence. But he perceived that the coincidence was not +after all so amazing. They had done what they had to do in the way of +settling Eve into the noble mansion, and then they had betaken +themselves to the nearest and the best dancing resort for the rest of +the evening. Nothing could be more natural. + +Mr. Prohack might have done all manner of feats. What he actually did do +was to fly like a criminal to the lift and seek his couch. + + +III + +The next morning at ten o'clock a strange thing happened. The hotel +clocks showed the hour and Mr. Prohack's watch showed the hour, and +Carthew was not there with the car. Mr. Prohack could not understand +this unnatural failure to appear on the part of Carthew, for Carthew had +never been known to be late (save when interfered with by Mimi), and +therefore never could be late. Mr. Prohack fretted for a quarter of an +hour, and then caused the hotel-garage to be telephoned to. The car had +left the garage at nine-fifty. Mr. Prohack went out for a walk, not +ostensibly, but really, to look for the car in the streets of London! +(Such was his diseased mentality.) He returned at half past eleven, and +at eleven thirty-two the car arrived. Immediately Mr. Prohack became +calm; his exterior was apt to be very deceptive; and he said gently to +Carthew, just as if nothing in the least unusual had occurred: + +"A little late, aren't you?" + +"Yes, sir," Carthew replied, with a calmness to match his employer's. +"As I was coming here from the garage I met the mistress. She was +looking for a taxi and she took me." + +"But did you tell her that I asked you to be here at 10 o'clock?" + +"No, sir." + +"Did you tell her that I was in London?" + +"No, sir." + +Mr. Prohack hesitated a moment and then said: + +"Drive into Hyde Park, please, and keep to the north side." + +When the car had reached a quiet spot in the park, Mr. Prohack stopped +it, and, tapping on the front window, summoned Carthew. + +"Carthew," said he, through the side-window, which he let down without +opening the door, "we're by ourselves. Will you kindly explain to me why +you concealed from Mrs. Prohack that I was in London?" + +"Well, sir," Carthew answered, very erect and slightly frowning, "I +didn't know you were in London, if you understand what I mean." + +"Didn't you bring me to London? Of course you knew I was in London." + +"No, sir. Not if you understand what I mean." + +"I emphatically do not understand what you mean," said Mr. Prohack, who, +however, was not speaking the truth. + +"May I put a question, sir?" Carthew suggested. "Having regard to all +the circumstances--I say having regard as it were to all the +circumstances, in a manner of speaking, what should you have done in my +place, sir?" + +"How do I know?" cried Mr. Prohack. "I'm not a chauffeur. What _did_ you +say to Mrs. Prohack?" + +"I said that you had instructed me to return to London, as you didn't +need the car, and that I was just going to the house for orders. And by +the way, sir," Carthew added, glancing at the car-clock, "Madam told me +to be back at twelve fifteen--I told her I ought to go to the garage to +get something done to the carbureter--so that there is not much time." + +Mr. Prohack jumped out of the car and said: "Go." + +Wandering alone in the chilly Park he reflected upon the potentialities +of human nature as exhibited in chauffeurs. The fellow Carthew had +evidently come to the conclusion that there was something wrong in the +more intimate relationships of the Prohack family, and, faced with a +sudden contretemps, he had acted according to the best of his wisdom and +according to his loyalty to his employer, but he had acted wrongly. But +of course the original sinner was Mr. Prohack himself. Respectable State +officials, even when on sick leave, do not call at empty houses and stay +at hotels within a stone's throw of their own residences unknown to +their families. No! Mr. Prohack saw that he had been steering a crooked +course. Error existed and must be corrected. He decided to walk direct +to Manchester Square. If Eve wanted the car at twelve fifteen she would +be out of the house at twelve thirty, and probably out for lunch. So +much the better. She should find him duly established on her return. + +Reconnoitring later at Manchester Square he saw no car, and rang the +bell of the noble mansion. On account of the interview of the previous +evening he felt considerably nervous and foolish, and the butler +suffered through no fault of the butler's. + +"I'm Mr. Prohack," said he, with self-conscious fierceness. "What's your +name? Brool, eh? Take my overcoat and send Machin to me at once." He lit +a cigarette to cover himself. The situation, though transient, had been +sufficiently difficult. + +Machin came leaping and bounding down the stairs as if by magic. She had +heard his voice, and her joy at his entry into his abode caused her to +forget her parlour-maidenhood and to exhibit a humanity which pained Mr. +Brool, who had been brought up in the strictest traditions of +flunkeyism. Her joy pleased Mr. Prohack and he felt better. + +"Good morning, Machin," said he, quite blithely. "I just want to see how +things have been fixed up in my rooms." He had not the least notion +where or what his rooms were in the vast pile. + +"Yes, sir," Machin responded eagerly, delighted that Mr. Prohack was +making to herself, as an old friend, an appeal which he ought to have +made to the butler. Mr. Prohack, guided by the prancing Machin, +discovered that, in addition to a study, he had a bedroom and a +dressing-room and a share in Eve's bath-room. The dressing-room had a +most agreeable aspect. Machin opened a huge and magnificent wardrobe, +and in drawer after drawer displayed his new hosiery marvellously +arranged, and in other portions of the wardrobe his new suits and hats +and boots. The whole made a wondrous spectacle. + +"And who did all this?" he demanded. + +"Madam, sir. But Miss Warburton came to help her at nine this morning, +and I helped too. Miss Warburton has put the lists in your study, sir." + +"Thank you, Machin. It's all very nice." He was touched. The thought of +all these women toiling in secret to please him was exceedingly sweet. +It was not as though he had issued any requests. No! They did what they +did from enthusiasm, unknown to him. + +"Wait a second," he stopped Machin, who was leaving him. "Which floor +did you say my study is on?" + +She led him to his study. An enormous desk, and in the middle of it a +little pile of papers crushed by a block of crystal! The papers were +all bills. The amounts of them alarmed him momentarily, but that was +only because he could not continuously and effectively remember that he +had over three hundred pounds a week coming in. Still, the bills did +somewhat dash him, and he left them without getting to the bottom of the +pile. He thought he would voyage through the house, but he got no +further than his wife's boudoir. The boudoir also had an enormous desk, +and on it also was a pile of papers. He offended the marital code by +picking up the first one, which read as follows:--"Madam. We beg to +enclose as requested estimate for buffet refreshments for one hundred +and fifty persons, and hire of one hundred gilt cane chairs and bringing +and taking away same. Trusting to be honoured with your commands--" This +document did more than alarm him; it shook him. Clearly Eve was planning +a great reception. Even to attend a reception was torture to him, always +had been; but to be the host at a reception...! No, his mind refused to +contemplate a prospect so appalling. Surely Eve ought to have consulted +him before beginning to plan a reception. Why a reception? He glimpsed +matters that might be even worse than a reception. And this was the same +woman who had so touchingly arranged his clothes. + + + + +IV + +He was idly regarding himself in an immense mirror that topped the +fireplace, and thinking that despite the stylishness of his accoutrement +he presented the appearance of a rather tousled and hairy person of +unromantic middle-age, when, in the glass, he saw the gilded door open +and a woman enter the room. He did not move,--only stared at the image. +He knew the woman intimately, profoundly, exhaustively, almost totally. +He knew her as one knows the countryside in which one has grown up, +where every feature of the scene has become a habit of the perceptions. +And yet he had also a strange sensation of seeing her newly, of seeing +her for the first time in his life and estimating her afresh. In a flash +he had compared her, in this boudoir, with Lady Massulam in Lady +Massulam's bungalow. In a flash all the queer, frightening romance of 2 +a.m. in Frinton had swept through his mind. Well, she had not the +imposingness nor the mystery of Lady Massulam, nor perhaps the challenge +of Lady Massulam; she was very much more prosaic to him. But still he +admitted that she had an effect on him, that he reacted to her presence, +that she was at any rate at least as incalculable as Lady Massulam, and +that there might be bits of poetry gleaming in her prose, and that +after a quarter of a century he had not arrived at a final judgment +about her. Withal Lady Massulam had a quality which she lacked,--he did +not know what the quality was, but he knew that it excited him in an +unprecedented manner and that he wanted it and would renounce it with +regret. "Is it conceivable," he thought, shocked at himself, "that all +three of us are on the road to fifty years?" + +Then he turned, and blushed, feeling exactly like an undergraduate. + +"I knew you'd be bored up there in that hole." Eve greeted him. + +"I wasn't bored for a single moment," said he. + +"Don't tell me," said she. + +She was very smart in her plumpness. The brim of her spreading hat +bumped against his forehead as he bent to kiss her. The edge of the +brown veil came half-way down her face, leaving her mouth unprotected +from him, but obscuring her disturbing eyes. As he kissed her all his +despondency and worry fell away from him, and he saw with extraordinary +clearness that since the previous evening he had been an irrational ass. +The creature had done nothing unusual, nothing that he had not +explicitly left her free to do; and everything was all right. + +"Did you see your friend Lady Massulam?" was her first question. + +Marvellous the intuition--or the happy flukes--of women! Yet their +duplicity was still more marvellous. The creature's expressed anxiety +about the danger of Lady Massulam's society to Charlie must have been +pure, wanton, gratuitous pretence. + +He told her of his meeting with Lady Massulam. + +"I left her at 2 a.m.," said he, with well-feigned levity. + +"I knew she wouldn't leave you alone for long. But I've no doubt you +enjoyed it. I hope you did. You need adventure, my poor boy. You were +getting into a regular rut." + +"Oh, was I!" he opposed. "And what are you doing here? Machin told me +you were out for lunch." + +"Oh! You've been having a chat with your friend Machin, have you? It +seems she's shown you your beautiful dressing-room. Well, I was going +out for lunch. But when I heard you'd returned I gave it up and came +back. I knew so well you'd want looking after." + +"And who told you I'd returned?" + +"Carthew, of course! You're a very peculiar pair, you two. When I first +saw him Carthew gave me to understand he'd left you at Frinton. But when +I see him again I learn that you're in town and that you spent last +night at Claridge's. You did quite right, my poor boy. Quite right. I +want you to feel free. It must have been great fun stopping at +Claridge's, with your own home close by. I'll tell you something. We +were dancing at Claridge's last night, but I suppose you'd gone to bed." + +"The dickens you were!" said he. "By the way, you might instruct one of +your butlers to telephone to the hotel for my things and have the bill +paid." + +"So you'll sleep here to-night?" said she, archly. + +"If there's room," said he. "Anyway you've arranged all my clothes with +the most entrancing harmony and precision." + +"Oh!" Eve exclaimed, in a tone suddenly changed. "That was Miss +Warburton more than me. She took an hour off from Charlie this morning +in order to do it." + +Then Mr. Prohack observed his wife's face crumble to pieces, and she +moved aside from him, sat down and began to cry. + +"Now what next? What next?" he demanded with impatient amiability, for +he was completely at a loss to keep pace with the twistings of her mind. + +"Arthur, why did you deceive me about that girl? How could you do it? I +hadn't the slightest idea it was M--miss W--instock. I can't make you +out sometimes, Arthur--really I can't!" + +The fellow had honestly forgotten that he had in fact grossly deceived +his wife to the point of planting Mimi Winstock upon her as somebody +else. He had been nourishing imaginary and absurd grievances against Eve +for many hours, but her grievance against himself was genuine enough and +large enough. No wonder she could not make him out. He could not make +himself out. His conscience awoke within him and became exceedingly +unpleasant. But being a bad man he laughed somewhat coarsely. + +"Oh!" he said. "That was only a bit of a joke. But how did you find out, +you silly child?" + +"Ozzie saw her yesterday. He knew her. You can't imagine how awkward it +was. Naturally I had to laugh it off. But I cried half the night." + +"But why? What did it matter? Ozzie's one of the family. The girl's not +at all a bad sort, and I did it for her sake." + +Eve dried her eyes and looked up at him reproachfully with wet cheeks. + +"When I think," said she, "that that girl might so easily have killed me +in that accident! And it would have been all her fault. And then where +would you have been without me? Where _would_ you have been? You'd never +have got over it. Never, never! You simply don't know what you'd be if +you hadn't got me to look after you! And you bring her into the house +under a false name, and you call it a joke! No, Arthur. Frankly I +couldn't have believed it of you." + +Mr. Prohack was affected. He was not merely dazzled by the new light +which she was shedding on things,--he was emotionally moved.... Would +Lady Massulam be capable of such an attitude as Eve's in such a +situation? The woman was astounding. She was more romantic than any +creature in any bungalow of romantic Frinton. She beat him. She rent his +heart. So he said: + +"Well, my beloved infant, if it's any use to you I'm prepared to admit +once for all that I was an ass. We'll never have the wretched Mimi in +the house again. I'll give the word to Charlie." + +"Oh, not at all!" she murmured, smiling sadly. "I've got over it. And +you must think of my dignity. How ridiculous it would be of me to make a +fuss about her being here! Now, wouldn't it? But I'm glad I've told you. +I didn't mean to, really. I meant never to say a word. But the fact is I +can't keep anything from you." + +She began to cry again, but differently. He soothed her, as none but he +could, thinking exultantly: "What a power I have over this chit!" They +were perfectly happy. They lunched alone together, talking exclusively +for the benefit of Eve's majestic butler. And Mr. Prohack, with that +many-sidedness that marked his strange regrettable mind, said to himself +at intervals: "Nevertheless she's still hiding from me her disgusting +scheme for a big reception. And she knows jolly well I shall hate it." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE RECEPTION + + +The reception pleased Mr. Prohack as a spectacle, and it cost him almost +no trouble. He announced his decision that it must cost him no trouble, +and everybody in the house, and a few people outside it, took him at his +word--which did not wholly gratify him. Indeed the family and its +connections seemed to be conspiring to give him a life of ease. +Responsibilities were lifted from him. He did not even miss his +secretary. Sissie, who returned home--by a curious coincidence--on the +very day that Mimi Winstock was transferred to Charlie's service in the +Grand Babylon, performed what she called 'secretarial stunts' for her +father as and when required. On the afternoon of the reception, which +was timed to begin at 9 p.m., he had an attack of fright, but, by a +process well known to public executants, it passed off long before it +could develop into stage-fright; and he was quite at ease at 9 p.m. + +The first arrivals came at nine thirty. He stood by Eve and greeted +them; and he had greeted about twenty individuals when he yawned (for a +good reason) and Eve said to him: + +"You needn't stay here, you know. Go and amuse yourself." (This +suggestion followed the advent of Lady Massulam.) + +He didn't stay. Ozzie Morfey and Sissie supplanted him. At a quarter to +eleven he was in the glazed conservatory built over the monumental +portico, with Sir Paul Spinner. He could see down into the Square, which +was filled with the splendid and numerous automobiles incident to his +wife's reception. Guests--and not the least important among them--were +still arriving. Cars rolled up to the portico, gorgeous women and plain +men jumped out on to the red cloth, of which he could just see the +extremity near the kerb, and vanished under him, and the cars hid +themselves away in the depths of the Square. Looking within his home he +admired the vista of brilliantly illuminated rooms, full of gilt chairs, +priceless furniture, and extremely courageous toilettes. For, as the +reception was 'to meet the Committee of the League of all the Arts.' +(Ozzie had placed many copies of the explanatory pamphlet on various +tables), artists of all kinds and degrees abounded, and the bourgeois +world (which chiefly owned the automobiles) thought proper to be +sartorially as improper as fashion would allow; and fashion allowed +quite a lot. The affair might have been described as a study in +shoulder-blades. It was a very great show, and Mr. Prohack appreciated +all of it, the women, the men, the lionesses, the lions, the +kaleidoscope of them, the lights, the reflections in the mirrors and in +the waxed floors, the discreetly hidden music, the grandiose buffet, the +efficient valetry. He soon got used to not recognising, and not being +recognised by, the visitors to his own house. True, he could not +conceive that the affair would serve any purpose but one,--namely the +purpose of affording innocent and expensive pleasure to his wife. + +"You've hit on a pretty good sort of a place here," grunted Sir Paul +Spinner, whose waistcoat buttons were surpassed in splendour only by his +carbuncles. + +"Well," said Mr. Prohack, "to me, living here is rather like being on +the stage all the time. It's not real." + +"What the deuce do you mean, it's not real? There aren't twenty houses +in London with a finer collection of genuine bibelots than you have +here." + +"Yes, but they aren't mine, and I didn't choose them or arrange them." + +"What does that matter? You can look at them and enjoy the sight of +them. Nobody can do more." + +"Paul, you're talking neo-conventional nonsense again. Have you ever in +your career as a city man stood outside a money-changer's and looked at +the fine collection of genuine banknotes in the window? Supposing I told +you that you could look at them and enjoy the sight of them, and nobody +could do more?... No, my boy, to enjoy a thing properly you've got to +own it. And anybody who says the contrary is probably a member of the +League of all the Arts." He gave another enormous yawn. "Excuse my +yawning, Paul, but this house is a perfect Inferno for me. The church of +St. Nicodemus is hard by, and the church of St. Nicodemus has a striking +clock, and the clock strikes all the hours and all the quarters on a +half cracked bell or two bells. If I am asleep every hour wakes me up, +and most of the quarters. The clock strikes not only the hours and the +quarters but me. I regulate my life by that clock. If I'm beginning to +repose at ten minutes to the hour, I say to myself that I must wait till +the hour before really beginning, and I do wait. It is killing me, and +nobody can see that it is killing me. The clock annoys some individuals +a little occasionally; they curse, and then go to sleep and stay +asleep. For them the clock is a nuisance; but for me it's an +assassination. However, I can't make too much fuss. Several thousands of +people must live within sound of the St. Nicodemus clock; yet the rector +has not been murdered nor the church razed to the ground. Hence the +clock doesn't really upset many people. And there are hundreds of such +infernal clocks in London, and they all survive. It follows therefore +that I am peculiar. Nobody has a right to be peculiar. Hence I do not +complain. I suffer. I've tried stuffing my ears with cotton-wool, and +stuffing the windows of my bedroom with eiderdowns. No use. I've tried +veronal. No use either. The only remedy would be for me to give the +house up. Which would he absurd. My wife soothes me and says that of +course I shall get used to the clock. I shall never get used to it. +Lately she has ceased even to mention the clock. My daughter thinks I am +becoming a grumbler in my latter years. My son smiles indifferently. I +admit that my son's secretary is more sympathetic. Like most people who +are both idle and short of sleep, I usually look very well, spry and +wideawake. My friends remark on my healthy appearance. You did. The +popular mind cannot conceive that I am merely helplessly waiting for +death to put me out of my misery; but so it is. There must be quite a +few others in the same fix as me in London, dying because rectors and +other clergymen and officials insist on telling them the time all +through the night. But they suffer in silence as I do. As I do, they see +the uselessness of a fuss." + +"You _will_ get used to it, Arthur," said Sir Paul indulgently but not +unironically, at the end of Mr. Prohack's disquisition. "You're in a +nervous state and your judgment's warped. Now, I never even heard your +famous clock strike ten." + +"No, you wouldn't, Paul! And my judgment's warped, is it?" There was +irritation in Mr. Prohack's voice. He took out his watch. "In sixty or +seventy seconds you shall hear that clock strike eleven, and you shall +give me your honest views about it. And you shall apologise to me." + +Sir Paul obediently and sympathetically listened, while the murmur of +the glowing reception and the low beat of music continued within. + +"You tell me when it starts to strike," said he. + +"You won't want any telling," said Mr. Prohack, who knew too well the +riving, rending, smashing sound of the terrible bells. + +"It's a pretty long seventy seconds," observed Sir Paul. + +"My watch must be fast," said Mr. Prohack, perturbed. + +But at eighteen minutes past eleven the clock had audibly struck neither +the hour nor the quarter. Sir Paul was a man of tact. He said simply: + +"I should like a drink, dear old boy." + +"_The clock's not striking_," said Mr. Prohack, with solemn joy, as the +wonderful truth presented itself to him. "Either it's stopped, or +they've cut off the striking attachment." And to one of the maids on the +landing he said as they passed towards the buffet: "Run out and see what +time it is by the church clock, and come back and tell me, will you?" A +few minutes later he was informed that the church clock showed half-past +eleven. The clock therefore was still going but had ceased to strike. +Mr. Prohack at once drank two glasses of champagne at the buffet, while +Sir Paul had the customary whiskey. + +"I say, old thing, I say!" Sir Paul protested. + +"_I shall sleep!_" said Mr. Prohack in a loud, gay, triumphant voice. He +was a new man. + + * * * * * + +The reception now seemed to him far more superb than ever. It was almost +at its apogee. All the gilt chairs were occupied; all the couches and +fauteuils of the room were occupied, and certain delicious toilettes +were even spread on rugs or on the bare, reflecting floors. On every +hand could be heard artistic discussions, serious and informed and yet +lightsome in tone. If it was not the real originality of jazz music that +was being discussed, it was the sureness of the natural untaught taste +of the denizens of the East End and South London, and if not that then +the greatness of male revue artistes, and if not that then the need of a +national theatre and of a minister of fine arts, and if not that then +the sculptural quality of the best novels and the fictional quality of +the best sculpture, and if not that then the influence on British life +of the fox-trot, and if not that then the prospects of bringing modern +poets home to the largest public by means of the board schools, and if +not that then the evil effects of the twin great London institutions for +teaching music upon the individualities of the young geniuses entrusted +to them, and if not that the part played by the most earnest amateurs in +the destruction of opera, and if not that the total eclipse of +Beethoven, Brahms and Wagner since the efflorescence of the Russian +Ballet. And always there ran like a flame through the conversations the +hot breath of a passionate intention to make Britain artistic in the +eyes of the civilised world. + +What especially pleased Mr. Prohack about the whole affair, as he moved +to and fro seeking society now instead of avoiding it, was the perfect +futility of the affair, save as it affected Eve's reputation. He +perceived the beauty of costly futility, and he was struck again, when +from afar he observed his wife's conquering mien, by the fact that the +reception did not exist for the League, but the League for the +reception. The reception was a real and a resplendent thing; nobody +could deny it. The League was a fog of gush. The League would be dear at +twopence half-penny. The reception was cheap if it stood him in five +hundred pounds. Eve was an infant; Eve was pleased with gewgaws; but Eve +had found herself and he was well content to pay five hundred pounds for +the look on her ingenuous face. + +"And nothing of this would have happened," he thought, impressed by the +wonders of life, "if in a foolish impulse of generosity I hadn't once +lent a hundred quid to that chap Angmering." + +He descried Lady Massulam in converse with a tall, stout and +magnificently dressed gentleman, who bowed deeply and departed as Mr. +Prohack approached. + +"Who is your fat friend?" said Mr. Prohack. + +"He's from _The Daily Picture_.... But isn't this rather a strange way +of greeting a guest after so long a separation? Do you know that I'm in +your house and you haven't shaken hands with me?" + +There was a note of intimacy and of challenge in Lady Massulam's +demeanour that pleased Mr. Prohack immensely, and caused him to see that +the romance of Frinton was neither factitious nor at an end. He felt +pleasantly, and even thrillingly, that they had something between them. + +"Ah!" he returned, consciously exerting his charm. "I thought you +detested our English formality and horrible restraint. Further, this +isn't my house; it's my wife's." + +"Your wife is wonderful!" said Lady Massulam, as though teaching him to +appreciate his wife and indicating that she alone had the right thus to +teach him,--the subtlest thing. "I've never seen an evening better +done--_reussie_." + +"She is rather wonderful," Mr. Prohack admitted, his tone implying that +while putting Lady Massulam in a class apart, he had wit enough to put +his wife too in a class apart,--the subtlest thing. + +"I quite expected to meet you again in Frinton," said Lady Massulam +simply. "How abrupt you are in your methods!" + +"Only when it's a case of self-preservation," Mr. Prohack responded, +gazing at her with daring significance. + +"I'm going to talk to Mrs. Prohack," said Lady Massulam, rising. But +before she left him she murmured confidentially in his ear: "Where's +your son?" + +"Don't know. Why?' + +"I don't think he's come yet. I'm afraid the poor boy's affairs are not +very bright." + +"I shall look after him," said Mr. Prohack, grandly. A qualm did pierce +him at the sound of her words, but he would not be depressed. He smiled +serenely, self-confidently, and said to himself: "I could look after +forty Charleses." + +He watched his wife and his friend chatting together as equals in _The +Daily Picture_. Yes, Eve was wonderful, and but for sheer hazard he +would never have known how wonderful she was capable of being. + +"You've got a great show here to-night, old man," said a low, mysterious +voice at his side. Mr. Softly Bishop was smiling down his nose and +holding out his hand while looking at nothing but his nose. + +"Hello, Bishop!" said Mr. Prohack, controlling a desire to add: "I'd no +idea _you'd_ been invited!" + +"Samples of every world--except the next," said Mr. Softly Bishop. "And +now the theatrical contingent is arriving after its night's work." + +"Do you know who that fellow is?" Mr. Prohack demanded, indicating a +little man with the aspect of a prize-fighter who was imperially +conveying to Mrs. Prohack that Mrs. Prohack was lucky to get him to her +reception. + +"Why!" replied Mr. Bishop. "That's the Napoleon of the stage." + +"Not Asprey Chown!" + +"Asprey Chown." + +"Great Scott!" And Mr. Prohack laughed. + +"Why are you laughing?" + +"Mere glee. This is the crown of my career as a man of the world." He +saw Mr. Asprey Chown give a careless brusque nod to Ozzie Morfey, and he +laughed again. + +"It's rather comic, isn't it?" Mr. Softly Bishop acquiesced. "I wonder +why Oswald Morfey has abandoned his famous stock for an ordinary +necktie." + +"Probably because he's going to be my son-in-law," said Mr. Prohack. + +"Ah!" ejaculated Mr. Softly Bishop. "I congratulate him." + +Mr. Prohack looked grim in order to conceal his joy in the assurance +that he would sleep that night, and in the sensations produced by the +clear fact that Lady Massulam was still interested in him. Somehow he +wanted to dance, not with any woman, but by himself, a reel. + +"By Jove!" exclaimed Mr. Softly Bishop. "You _are_ shining to-night. +Here's Eliza Fiddle, and that's her half-sister Miss Fancy behind her." + +And it was Eliza Fiddle, and the ageing artiste with her ravaged +complexion and her defiant extra-vivacious mien created instantly an +impression such as none but herself could have created. The entire +assemblage stared, murmuring its excitement, at the renowned creature. +Eliza loved the stare and the murmur. She was like a fish dropped into +water after a gasping spell in mere air. + +"I admit I was in too much of a hurry when I spoke of having reached the +zenith," said Mr. Prohack. "I'm only just getting there now. And who's +the half-sister?" + +"She's not precisely unknown on the American stage," answered Mr. Softly +Bishop. "But before we go any further I'd perhaps better tell you a +secret." His voice and his gaze dropped still lower. "She's a +particularly fine girl, and it won't be my fault if I don't marry her. +Not a word of course! Mum!" He turned away, while Mr. Prohack was +devising a suitable response. + +"Welcome to your old home. And do come with me to the buffet. You must +be tired after your work," Mr. Prohack burst out in a bold, loud voice +to Eliza, taking her away from his wife, whose nearly exhausted tact +almost failed to hide her relief. + +"I do hope you like the taste of my old home," Eliza answered. "My new +house up the river is furnished throughout in real oriental red lacquer. +You must come and see it." + +"I should love to," said Mr. Prohack bravely. + +"This is my little sister, Miss Fancy. Fan, Mr. Prohack." + +Mr. Prohack expressed his enchantment. + +At the buffet Eliza did not refuse champagne, but Miss Fancy refused. +"Now don't put on airs, Fan," Eliza reproved her sister heartily and +drank off her glass while Mr. Prohack sipped his somewhat cautiously. He +liked Eliza's reproof. He was beginning even to like Eliza. To say that +her style was coarse was to speak in moderation; but she was natural, +and her individuality seemed to be sending out waves in all directions, +by which all persons in the vicinity were affected whether they desired +it or not. Mr. Prohack met Eliza's glance with satisfaction. She at any +rate had nothing to learn about life that she was capable of learning. +She knew everything--and was probably the only creature in the room who +did. She had succeeded. She was adored--strangely enough. And she did +not put on airs. Her original coarseness was apparently quite +unobscured, whereas that of Miss Fancy had been not very skilfully +painted over. Miss Fancy was a blonde, much younger than Eliza; also +slimmer and more finickingly and luxuriously dressed and jewelled. But +Mr. Prohack cared not for her. She was always keeping her restless +inarticulate lips in order, buttoning them or sewing them up or +caressing one with the other. Further, she looked down her nose; +probably this trait was the secret lien between her and Mr. Softly +Bishop. Mr. Prohack, despite a cloistral lifetime at the Treasury, +recognised her type immediately. She was of the type that wheedles, but +never permits itself to be wheedled. And she was so pretty, and so +simpering, and her blue eyes were so steely. And Mr. Prohack, in his +original sinfulness, was pleased that she was thus. He felt that "it +would serve Softly Bishop out." Not that Mr. Softly Bishop had done him +any harm! Indeed the contrary. But he had an antipathy to Mr. Softly +Bishop, and the spectacle of Mr. Softly Bishop biting off more than he +could chew, of Mr. Softly Bishop being drawn to his doom, afforded Mr. +Prohack the most genuine pleasure. Unfortunately Mr. Prohack was one of +the rare monsters who can contemplate with satisfaction the misfortunes +of a fellow being. + +Mr. Softly Bishop unostentatiously joined the sisters and Mr. Prohack. + +"Better have just a sip," he said to Miss Fancy, when told by Eliza that +the girl would not be sociable. His eyes glimmered at her through his +artful spectacles. She listened obediently to his low-voiced wisdom and +sipped. She was shooting a million fascinations at him. Mr. Prohack +decided that the ultimate duel between the two might be a pretty even +thing after all; but he would put his money on the lady. And he had +thought Mr. Softly Bishop so wily! + +A fearful thought suddenly entered his mind: supposing the failure of +the church-clock's striking powers should be only temporary; supposing +it should recover under some verger's treatment, and strike twelve! + +"Let's go into the conservatory and look at the Square," said he. "I +always look at the Square at midnight, and it's nearly twelve now." + +"You're the most peculiar man I ever met," said Eliza Fiddle, eyeing him +uneasily. + +"Very true," Mr. Prohack agreed. + +"I'm half afraid of you." + +"Very wise," said Mr. Prohack absently. + +They crossed the rooms together, arousing keen interest in all beholders. +And as they crossed Charlie entered the assemblage. He certainly had an +extremely perturbed--or was it merely self-conscious--face. And just in +front of him was Mimi Winstock, who looked as if she was escaping from +the scene of a crime. Was Lady Massulam's warning about Charlie about to +be justified? Mr. Prohack's qualm was renewed. The very ground trembled +for a second under his feet and then was solid and moveless again. No +sooner had the quartette reached the conservatory than Eliza left it to +go and discuss important affairs with Mr. Asprey Chown, who had summoned +Ozzie to his elbow. They might not have seen one another for many years, +and they might have been settling the fate of continents. + +Mr. Prohack took out his watch, which showed a minute to twelve. He +experienced a minute's agony. The clock did not strike. + +"Well," said Mr. Softly Bishop, who during the minute had been +whispering information about the historic Square to Miss Fancy, who hung +with all her weight on his words, "Well, it's very interesting and even +amusing, we three being alone here together isn't it?... The three heirs +of the late Silas Angmering! How funny life is!" And he examined his +nose with new curiosity. + +All Mr. Prohack's skin tingled, and his face flushed, as he realised +that Miss Fancy was the mysterious third beneficiary under Angmering's +will. Yes, she was in fact jewelled like a woman who had recently been +handling a hundred thousand pounds or so. And Mr. Softly Bishop might be +less fascinated by the steely blue eyes than Mr. Prohack had imagined. +Mr. Softly Bishop might in fact win the duel. The question, however, had +no interest for Mr. Prohack, who was absorbed in a sense of gloomy +humiliation. He rushed away from his co-heirs. He simply had to rush +away right to bad. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE SILENT TOWER + + +The fount of riches and the Terror of the departments, clothed in the +latest pattern of sumptuous pyjamas, lay in the midst of his magnificent +and spacious bed, and, with the shaded electric globe over his brow, +gazed at the splendours of the vast bedroom which Eve had allotted to +him. It was full, but not too full, of the finest Directoire furniture, +and the walls were covered with all manner of engravings and +watercolours. Evidently this apartment had been the lair of the real +owner and creator of the great home. Mr. Prohack could appreciate the +catholicity and sureness of taste which it displayed. He liked the +cornice as well as the form of the dressing-table, and the Cumberland +landscape by C.J. Holmes as well as the large Piranesi etching of an +imaginary prison, which latter particularly interested him because it +happened to be an impression between two "states"--a detail which none +but a true amateur could savour. The prison depicted was a terrible +place of torment, but it was beautiful, and the view of it made Mr. +Prohack fancy, very absurdly, that he too was in prison, just as +securely as if he had been bolted and locked therein. His eye ranged +about the room and saw nothing that was not lovely and that he did not +admire. Yet he derived little or no authentic pleasure from what he +beheld, partly because it was the furnishing of a prison and partly +because he did not own it. He had often preached against the mania for +owning things, but now--and even more clearly than when he had +sermonised Paul Spinner--he perceived, and hated to perceive, that +ownership was probably an essential ingredient of most enjoyments. The +man, foolishly priding himself on being a philosopher, was indeed a +fleshly mass of strange inconsistencies. + +More important, he was losing the assurance that he would sleep soundly +that night. He could not drag his mind off his co-heiress and his +co-heir. The sense of humiliation at being intimately connected and +classed with them would not leave him. He felt himself--absurdly once +again--to be mysteriously associated with them in a piece of sharp +practice or even of knavery. They constituted another complication of +his existence. He wanted to disown them and never to speak to them +again, but he knew that he could not disown them. He was living in +gorgeousness for the sole reason that he and they were in the same boat. + +Eve came in, opening the door cautiously at first and then rushing +forward as soon as she saw that the room was not in darkness. He feared +for an instant that she might upbraid him for deserting her. But no! +Triumphant happiness sat on her forehead, and affectionate concern for +him was in her eyes. She plumped down, in her expensive radiance, on the +bed by his side. + +"Well?" said he. + +"I'm so glad you decided to go to bed," said she. "You must be tired, +and late nights don't suit you. I just slipped away for a minute to see +if you were all right. Are you?" She puckered her shining brow exactly +as of old, and bent and kissed him as of old. One of her best kisses. + +But the queer fellow, though touched by her attention, did not like her +being so glad that he had gone to bed. The alleged philosopher would +have preferred her to express some dependence upon his manly support in +what was for her a tremendous event. + +"I feel I shall sleep," he lied. + +"I'm sure you will, darling," she agreed. "Don't you think it's all been +a terrific success?" she asked naively. + +He answered, smiling: + +"I'm dying to see _The Daily Picture_ to-morrow. I think I shall tell +the newsagent in future only to deliver it on the days when you're in +it." + +"Don't be silly," she said, too pleased with herself, however, to resent +his irony. She was clothed in mail that night against all his shafts. + +He admitted, what he had always secretly known, that she was an +elementary creature; she would have been just as at home in the Stone +Age as in the twentieth century--and perhaps more at home. (Was Lady +Massulam equally elementary? No? Yes?) Still, Eve was necessary to him. + +Only, up to a short while ago, she had been his complement; whereas now +he appeared to be her complement. He, the philosopher and the source of +domestic wisdom, was fully aware, in a superior and lofty manner, that +she was the eternal child deceived by toys, gewgaws, and illusions; +nevertheless he was only her complement, the indispensable husband and +payer-out. She was succeeding without any brain-work from him. He +noticed that she was not wearing the pearls he had given her. No doubt +she had merely forgotten at the last moment to put them on. She was +continually forgetting them and leaving them about. But this negligent +woman was the organiser in chief of the great soiree! Well, if it had +succeeded, she was lucky. + +"I must run off," said she, starting up, busy, proud, falsely calm, the +general of a victorious army as the battle draws to a close. She +embraced him again, and he actually felt comforted.... She was gone. + +"As I grow older," he reflected, "I'm hanged if I don't understand life +less and less." + + * * * * * + +He was listening to the distant rhythm of the music when he mistily +comprehended that there was no music and that the sounds in his ear were +not musical. He could not believe that he had been asleep and had +awakened, but the facts were soon too much for his delusion and he said +with the air of a discoverer: "I've been asleep," and turned on the +light. + +There were voices and footsteps in the corridors or on the +landing,--whispers, loud and yet indistinct talking, tones indicating +that the speakers were excited, if not frightened, and that their +thoughts had been violently wrenched away from the pursuit of pleasure. +His watch showed two o'clock. The party was over, the last automobile +had departed, and probably even the tireless Eliza Fiddle was asleep in +her new home. Next Mr. Prohack noticed that the door of his room was +ajar. + +He had no anxiety. Rather he felt quite gay and careless,--the more so +as he had wakened up with the false sensation of complete refreshment +produced by short, heavy slumber. He thought: + +"Whatever has happened, I have had and shall have nothing to do with it, +and they must deal with the consequences themselves as best they can." +And as a measure of precaution against being compromised, he switched +off the light. He heard Eve's voice, surprisingly near his door: + +"I simply daren't tell him! No, I daren't!" + +The voice was considerably agitated, but he smiled maliciously to +himself, thinking: + +"It can't be anything very awful, because she only talks in that strain +when it's nothing at all. She loves to pretend she's afraid of me. And +moreover I don't believe there's anything on earth she daren't tell me." + +He heard another voice, reasoning in reply, that resembled Mimi's. +Hadn't that girl gone home yet? And he heard Sissie's voice and +Charlie's. But for him all these were inarticulate. + +Then his room was filled with swift blinding light. Somebody had put a +hand through the doorway and turned the light on. It must be Eve.... It +was Eve, scared and distressed, but still in complete war-paint. + +"I'm so relieved you're awake, Arthur," she said, approaching the bed as +though she anticipated the bed would bite her. + +"I'm not awake. I'm asleep, officially. My poor girl, you've ruined the +finest night I was ever going to have in all my life." + +She ignored his complaint, absolutely. + +"Arthur," she said, her face twitching in every direction, and all her +triumph fallen from her, "Arthur, I've lost my pearls. They're gone! +Some one must have taken them!" + +Mr. Prohack's reaction to this piece of more-than-midnight news was to +break into hearty and healthy laughter; he appeared to be genuinely +diverted; and when Eve protested against such an attitude he said: + +"My child, anything that strikes you as funny after being wakened up at +two o'clock in the morning is very funny, very funny indeed. How can I +help laughing?" Eve thereupon began to cry, weakly. + +"Come here, please," said he. + +And she came and sat on the bed, but how differently from the previous +visit! She was now beaten by circumstances, and she turned for aid to +his alleged more powerful mind and deeper wisdom. In addition to being +amused, the man was positively happy, because he was no longer a mere +complement! So he comforted her, and put his hands on her shoulders. + +"Don't worry," said he, gently. "And after all I'm not surprised the +necklace has been pinched." + +"Not surprised? Arthur!" + +"No. You collect here half the notorious smart people in London. Fifty +per cent of them go through one or other of the Courts; five per cent +end by being detected criminals, and goodness knows what per cent end by +being undetected criminals. Possibly two per cent treat marriage +seriously, and possibly one per cent is not in debt. That's the +atmosphere you created, and it's an atmosphere in which pearls are apt +to melt away. Hence I am not surprised, and you mustn't be. Still, it +would be interesting to know _how_ the things melted away. Were you +wearing them?" + +"Of course I was wearing them. There was nothing finer here +to-night--that _I_ saw." + +"You hadn't got them on when you came in here before." + +"Hadn't I?" said Eve, thoughtful. + +"No, you hadn't." + +"Then why didn't you tell me?" Eve demanded suddenly, almost fiercely, +through her tears, withdrawing her shoulders from his hands. + +"Well," said Mr. Prohack. "I thought you'd know what you'd got on, or +what you hadn't got on." + +"I think you might have told me. If you had perhaps the--" + +Mr. Prohack put his hand over her mouth. + +"Stop," said he. "My sweet child, I can save you a lot of trouble. It's +all my fault. If I hadn't been a miracle of stupidity the necklace would +never have disappeared. This point being agreed to, let us go on to the +next. When did you find out your sad loss?" + +"It was Miss Winstock who asked me what I'd done with my necklace. I put +my hand to my throat, and it was gone. It must have come undone." + +"Didn't you say to me a fortnight or so ago that the little safety-chain +had gone wrong?" + +"Did I?" said Eve, innocently. + +"Did you have the safety-chain repaired?" + +"I was going to have it done to-morrow. You see, if I'd sent it to be +done to-day, then I couldn't have worn the necklace to-night, could I?" + +"Very true," Mr. Prohack concurred. + +"But who could have taken it?" + +"Ah! Are you sure that it isn't lying on the floor somewhere?" + +"Every place where I've been has been searched--thoroughly. It's quite +certain that it must have been picked up and pocketed." + +"Then by a man, seeing that women have no pockets--except their +husbands'. I'm beginning to feel quite like a detective already. By the +way, lady, the notion of giving a reception in a house like this without +a detective disguised as a guest was rather grotesque." + +"But of course I had detectives!" Eve burst out. "I had two private +ones. I thought one ought to be enough, but as soon as the agents saw +the inventory of knicknacks and things, they advised me to have two men. +One of them's here still. In fact he's waiting to see you. The Scotland +Yard people are very annoying. They've refused to do anything until +morning." + +That Eve should have engaged detectives was something of a blow to the +masculine superiority of Mr. Prohack. However, he kept himself in +countenance by convincing himself in secret that she had not thought of +the idea; the idea must have been given to her by another +person--probably Mimi, who nevertheless was also a woman. + +"And do you seriously expect me to interview a detective in the middle +of the night?" demanded Mr. Prohack. + +"He said he should like to see you. But of course if you don't feel +equal to it, my poor boy, I'll tell him so." + +"What does he want to see _me_ for? I've nothing to do with it, and I +know nothing." + +"He says that as you bought the necklace he must see you--and the sooner +the better." + +This new aspect of the matter seemed to make Mr. Prohack rather +thoughtful. + + * * * * * + +III + + +Eve brought in to her husband, who had improved his moral stamina and +his physical charm by means of the finest of his dressing-gowns, a dark, +thin young man, clothed to marvellous perfection, with a much-loved +moustache, and looking as fresh as if he was just going to a party. Mr. +Prohack of course recognised him as one of the guests. + +"Good morning," said Mr. Prohack. "So _you_ are the detective." + +"Yes, sir," answered the detective, formally. + +"Do you know, all the evening I was under the impression that you were +First Secretary to the Czecho-Slovakian Legation." + +"No, sir," answered the detective, formally. + +"Well! Well! I think there is a proverb to the effect that appearances +are deceptive." + +"Is there indeed, sir?" said the detective, with unshaken gravity. "In +our business we think that appearances ought to be deceptive." + +"Now talking of your business," Mr. Prohack remarked with one of his +efforts to be very persuasive. "What about this unfortunate affair?" + +"Yes, sir, what about it?" The detective looked askance at Eve. + +"I suppose there's no doubt the thing's been stolen--By the way, sit on +the end of the bed, will you? Then you'll be near me." + +"Yes, sir," said the detective, sitting down. "There is no doubt the +necklace has been removed by some one, either for a nefarious purpose or +for a joke." + +"Ah! A joke?" meditated Mr. Prohack, aloud. + +"It certainly hasn't been taken for a joke," said Eve warmly. "Nobody +that I know well enough for them to play such a trick would dream of +playing it." + +"Then," said Mr. Prohack, "we are left all alone with the nefarious +purpose. I had a sort of a notion that I should meet the nefarious +purpose, and here it is! I suppose there's little hope?" + +"Well, sir. You know what happens to a stolen pearl necklace. The pearls +are separated. They can be sold at once, one at a time, or they can be +kept for years and then sold. Pearls, except the very finest, leave no +trace when they get a fair start." + +"What I can't understand," Eve exclaimed, "is how it could have dropped +off without me noticing it." + +"Oh! I can easily understand that," said Mr. Prohack, with a peculiar +intonation. + +"I've known ladies lose even their hair without noticing anything," said +the detective firmly. "Not to mention other items." + +"But without anybody else noticing it either?" Eve pursued her own train +of thought. + +"Somebody did notice it," said the detective, writing on a small piece +of paper. + +"Who?" + +"The person who took the necklace." + +"Well, of course I know that," Eve spoke impatiently. "But who can it +be? I feel sure it's one of the new servants or one of the hired +waiters." + +"In our business, madam, we usually suspect servants and waiters last." +Then turning round very suddenly he demanded: "Who's that at the door?" + +Eve, startled, moved towards the door, and in the same instant the +detective put a small piece of paper into Mr. Prohack's lap, and Mr. +Prohack read on the paper: + +"_Should like see you alone_." The detective picked up the paper again. +Mr. Prohack laughed joyously within himself. + +"There's nobody at the door," said Eve. "How you frightened me!" + +"Marian," said Mr. Prohack, fully inspired. "Take my keys off there, +will you, and go to my study and unlock the top right-hand drawer of the +big desk. You'll find a blue paper at the top at the back. Bring it to +me. I don't know which is the right key, but you'll soon see." + +And when Eve, eager with her important mission, had departed, Mr. +Prohack continued to the detective: + +"Pretty good that, eh, for an improvisation? The key of that drawer +isn't on that ring at all. And even if she does manage to open the +drawer there's no blue paper in there at all. She'll be quite some +time." + +The detective stared at Mr. Prohack in a way to reduce his facile +self-satisfaction. + +"What I wish to know from you, sir, personally, is whether you want this +affair to be hushed up, or not." + +"Hushed up?" repeated Mr. Prohack, to whom the singular suggestion +opened out new and sinister avenues of speculation. "Why hushed up?" + +"Most of the cases we deal with have to be hushed up sooner or later," +answered the detective. "I only wanted to know where I was." + +"How interesting your work must be," observed Mr. Prohack, with quick +sympathetic enthusiasm. "I expect you love it. How did you get into it? +Did you serve an apprenticeship? I've often wondered about you private +detectives. It's a marvellous life." + +"I got into it through meeting a man in the Piccadilly Tube. As for +liking it, I shouldn't like any work." + +"But some people love their work." + +"So I've heard," said the detective sceptically. "Then I take it you do +want the matter smothered?" + +"But you've telephoned to Scotland Yard about it," said Mr. Prohack. "We +can't hush it up after that." + +"I told _them_," replied the detective grimly, indicating with his head +the whole world of the house. "I told _them_ I was telephoning to +Scotland Yard; but I wasn't. I was telephoning to our head-office. Then +am I to take it you want to find out all you can, but you want it +smothered?" + +"Not at all. I have no reason for hushing anything up." + +The detective gazed at him in a harsh, lower-middle-class way, and Mr. +Prohack quailed a little before that glance. + +"Will you please tell me where you bought the necklace?" + +"I really forget. Somewhere in Bond Street." + +"Oh! I see," said the detective. "A necklace of forty-nine pearls, over +half of them stated to be as big as peas, and it's slipped your memory +where you bought it." The detective yawned. + +"And I'm afraid I haven't kept the receipt either," said Mr. Prohack. "I +have an idea the firm went out of business soon after I bought the +necklace. At least I seem to remember noticing the shop shut up and then +opening again as something else." + +"No jeweller ever goes out of business in Bond Street," said the +detective, and yawned once more. "Well, Mr. Prohack, I don't think I +need trouble you any more to-night. If you or Mrs. Prohack will call at +our head-office during the course of to-morrow you shall have our +official report, and if anything really fresh should turn up I'll +telephone you immediately. Good night, Mr. Prohack." The man bowed +rather awkwardly as he rose from the bed, and departed. + +"That chap thinks there's something fishy between Eve and me," reflected +Mr. Prohack. "I wonder whether there is!" But he was still in high +spirits when Eve came back into the room. + +"The sleuth-hound has fled," said he. "I must have given him something +to think about." + +"I've tried all the keys and none of them will fit," Eve complained. +"And yet you're always grumbling at me for not keeping my keys in order. +If you wanted to show him the blue paper why have you let him go?" + +"My dear," said Mr. Prohack, "I didn't let him go. He did not consult +me, but merely and totally went." + +"And what is the blue paper?" Eve demanded. + +"Well, supposing it was the receipt for what I paid for the pearls?" + +"Oh! I see. But how would that help?" + +"It wouldn't help," Mr. Prohack replied. "My broken butterfly, you may +as well know the worst. The sleuth-hound doesn't hold out much hope." + +"Yes," said Eve. "And you seem delighted that I've lost my pearls! I +know what it is. You think it will be a lesson for me, and you love +people to have lessons. Why! Anybody might lose a necklace." + +"True. Ships are wrecked, and necklaces are lost, and Nelson even lost +his eye." + +"And I'm sure it _was_ one of the servants." + +"My child, you can be just as happy without a pearl necklace as with +one. You really aren't a woman who cares for vulgar display. Moreover, +in times like these, when society seems to be toppling over, what is a +valuable necklace, except a source of worry? Felicity is not to be +attained by the--" + +Eve screamed. + +"Arthur! If you go on like that I shall run straight out of the house +and take cold in the Square." + +"I will give you another necklace," Mr. Prohack answered this threat, +and as her face did not immediately clear, he added: "And a better one." + +"I don't want another one," said Eve. "I'd sooner be without one. I +know it was all my own fault. But you're horrid, and I can't make you +out, and I never could make you out. I never did know where I am with +you. And I believe you're hiding something from me. I believe you picked +up the necklace, and that's why you sent the detective away." + +Mr. Prohack had to assume his serious voice which always carried +conviction to Eve, and which he had never misused. "I haven't picked +your necklace up. I haven't seen it. And I know nothing about it." Then +he changed again. "And if you'll kindly step forward and kiss me good +morning I'll try to snatch a few moments' unconsciousness." + + +IV + +Mr. Prohack's life at this wonderful period of his career as a +practising philosopher at grips with the great world seemed to be a +series of violent awakenings. He was awakened, with even increased +violence, at about eight o'clock the next--or rather the same--morning, +and he would have been awakened earlier if the servants had got up +earlier. The characteristic desire of the servants to rise early had, +however, been enfeebled by the jolly vigils of the previous night. It +was, of course, Eve who rushed in to him--nobody else would have dared. +She had hastily cast about her plumpness the transformed Chinese gown, +which had the curious appearance of a survival from some former +incarnation. + +"Arthur!" she called, and positively shook the victim. "Arthur!" + +Mr. Prohack looked at her, dazed by the electric light which she had +ruthlessly turned on over his head. + +"There's a woman been caught in the area. She's a fat woman, and she +must have been there all night. The cook locked the area gate and the +woman was too fat to climb over. Brool's put her in the servants' hall +and fastened the door, and what do you think we ought to do first? Send +for the police or telephone to Mr. Crewd--he's the detective you saw +last night?" + +"If she's been in the area all night you'd better put her to bed, and +give her some hot brandy and water," said Mr. Prohack. + +"Arthur, please, please, be serious!" Eve supplicated. + +"I'm being as serious as a man can who has been disturbed in this +pleasant fashion by a pretty woman," said Mr. Prohack attentively +examining the ceiling. "You go and look after the fat lady. Supposing +she died from exposure. There'd have to be an inquest. Do you wish to +be mixed up in an inquest? What does she want? Whatever it is, give it +her, and let her go, and wake me up next week. I feel I can sleep a +bit." + +"Arthur! You'll drive me mad. Can't you see that she must be connected +with the necklace business. She _must_ be. It's as clear as day-light!" + +"Ah!" breathed Mr. Prohack, thoughtfully interested. "I'd forgotten the +necklace business." + +"Yes, well, I hadn't!" said Eve, rather shrewishly. "I had not." + +"Quite possibly she may be mixed up in the necklace business," Mr. +Prohack admitted. "She may be a clue. Look here, don't let's tell +anybody outside--not even Mr. Crewd. Let's detect for ourselves. It will +be the greatest fun. What does she say for herself?" + +"She said she was waiting outside the house to catch a young lady with a +snub-nose going away from my reception--Mimi Winstock, of course." + +"Why Mimi Winstock?" + +"Well, hasn't she got a turned-up nose? And she didn't go away from my +reception. She's sleeping here," Eve rejoined triumphantly. + +"And what else does the fat woman say?" + +"She says she won't say anything else--except to Mimi Winstock." + +"Well, then, wake up Mimi as you wakened me, and send her to the +servants' hall--wherever that is--I've never seen it myself!" + +Eve shook her somewhat tousled head vigorously. + +"Certainly not. I don't trust Miss Mimi Winstock--not one bit--and I'm +not going to let those two meet until you've had a talk with the +burglar." + +"Me!" Mr. Prohack protested. + +"Yes, you. Seeing that you don't want me to send for the police. +Something has to be done, and somebody has to do it. And I never did +trust that Mimi Winstock, and I'm very sorry she's gone to Charlie. That +was a great mistake. However, it's got nothing to do with me." She +shrugged her agreeable shoulders. "But my necklace has got something to +do with me." + +Mr. Prohack thought "What would Lady Massulam do in such a crisis? And +how would Lady Massulam look in a dressing-gown and her hair down? I +shall never know." Meanwhile he liked Eve's demeanour--its vivacity and +simplicity. "I'm afraid I'm still in love with her," the strange fellow +reflected, and said aloud: "You'd better kiss me. I shall have an awful +headache if you don't." And Eve reluctantly kissed him, with the look of +a martyr on her face. + +Within a few minutes Mr. Prohack had dismissed his wife, and was +descending the stairs in a dressing-gown which rivalled hers. The sight +of him in the unknown world of the basement floor, as he searched +unaided for the servants' hall, created an immense sensation,--far +greater than he had anticipated. A nice young girl, whom he had never +seen before and as to whom he knew nothing except that she was probably +one of his menials, was so moved that she nearly had an accident with a +tea-tray which she was carrying. + +"What is your name?" Mr. Prohack benignly asked. + +"Selina, sir." + +"Where are you going with that tea-tray and newspaper?" + +"I was just taking it upstairs to Machin, sir. She's not feeling well +enough to get up yet, sir." + +Mr. Prohack comprehended the greatness of the height to which Machin had +ascended. Machin, a parlourmaid, drinking tea in bed, and being served +by a lesser creature, who evidently regarded Machin as a person of high +power and importance on earth! Mr. Prohack saw that he was unacquainted +with the fundamental realities of life in Manchester Square. + +"Well," said he. "You can get some more tea for Machin. Give me that." +And he took the tray. "No, you can keep the newspaper." + +The paper was _The Daily Picture_. As he held the tray with one hand and +gave the paper back to Selina with the other, his eye caught the +headlines: "West End Sensation. Mrs. Prohack's Pearls Pinched." He +paled; but he was too proud a man to withdraw the paper again. No doubt +_The Daily Picture_ would reach him through the customary channels after +Machin had done with it, accompanied by the usual justifications about +the newsboy being late; he could wait. + +"Which is the servants' hall," said he. Selina's manner changed to +positive alarm as she indicated, in the dark subterranean corridor, the +door that was locked on the prisoner. Not merely the presence of Mr. +Prohack had thrilled the basement floor; there was a thrill greater even +than that, and Mr. Prohack, by demanding the door of the servants' hall +was intensifying the thrill to the last degree. The key was on the +outside of the door, which he unlocked. Within the electric light was +still burning in the obscure dawn. + +The prisoner, who sprang up from a chair and curtsied fearsomely at the +astonishing spectacle of Mr. Prohack, was fat in a superlative degree, +and her obesity gave her a middle-aged air to which she probably had no +right by the almanac. She looked quite forty, and might well have been +not more than thirty. She made a typical London figure of the +nondescript industrial class. It is inadequate to say that her shabby +black-trimmed bonnet, her shabby sham-fur coat half hiding a large +dubious apron, her shabby frayed black skirt, and her shabby, immense, +amorphous boots,--it is inadequate to say that these things seemed to +have come immediately out of a tenth-rate pawnshop; the woman herself +seemed to have come, all of a piece with her garments, out of a +tenth-rate pawnshop; the entity of her was at any rate homogeneous; it +sounded no discord. + +She did nothing so active as to weep, but tears, obeying the law of +gravity, oozed out of her small eyes, and ran in zigzags, unsummoned and +unchecked, down her dark-red cheeks. + +"Oh, sir!" she mumbled in a wee, scarcely articulate voice. "I'm a +respectable woman, so help me God!" + +"You shall be respected," said Mr. Prohack. "Sit down and drink some of +this tea and eat the bread-and-butter.... No! I don't want you to say +anything just yet. No, nothing at all." + +When she had got the tea into the cup, she poured it into the saucer and +blew on it and began to drink loudly. After two sips she plucked at a +piece of bread-and-butter, conveyed it into her mouth, and before doing +anything further to it, sirruped up some more tea. And in this way she +went on. Her table manners convinced Mr. Prohack that her claim to +respectability was authentic. + +"And now," said Mr. Prohack, gazing through the curtained window at the +blank wall that ended above him at the edge of the pavement, so as not +to embarrass her, "will you tell me why you spent the night in my area?" + +"Because some one locked the gate on me, sir, while I was hiding under +the shed where the dustbins are." + +"I quite see," said Mr. Prohack, "I quite see. But why did you go down +into the area? Were you begging, or what?" + +"Me begging, sir!" she exclaimed, and ceased to cry, fortified by the +tonic of aroused pride. + +"No, of course you weren't begging," said Mr. Prohack. "You may have +given to beggars--" + +"That I have, sir." She cried again. + +"But you don't beg. I quite see. Then what?" + +"It's no use me a-trying to tell you, sir. You won't believe me." Her +voice was extraordinarily thin and weak, and seldom achieved anything +that could fairly be called pronunciation. + +"I shall," said Mr. Prohack. "I'm a great believer. You try me. You'll +see." + +"It's like this. I was converted last night, and that's where the +trouble began, if it's the last word I ever speak." + +"Theology?" murmured Mr. Prohack, turning to look at her and marvelling +at the romantic quality of basements. + +"There was a mission on at the Methodists' in Paddington Street, and in +I went. Seems strange to me to be going into a Methodists', seeing as +I'm so friendly with Mr. Milcher." + +"Who is Mr. Milcher?" + +"Milcher's the sexton at St. Nicodemus, sir. Or I should say sacristan. +They call him sacristan instead of sexton because St. Nicodemus is High, +as I daresay _you_ know, sir, living so close." + +Mr. Prohack was conscious of a slight internal shiver, which he could +not explain, unless it might be due to a subconscious premonition of +unpleasantness to come. + +"I know that I live close to St. Nicodemus," he replied. "Very close. +Too close. But I did not know how High St. Nicodemus was. However, I'm +interrupting you." He perceived with satisfaction that his gift of +inspiring people with confidence was not failing him on this occasion. + +"Well, sir, as I was saying, it might, as you might say, seem strange me +popping like that into the Methodists', seeing what Milcher's views are; +but my mother was a Methodist in Canonbury,--a great place for +dissenters, sir, North London, you know, sir, and they do say blood's +thicker than water. So there I was, and the Mission a-going on, and as +soon as ever I got inside that chapel I knew I was done in. I never felt +so all-overish in all my days, and before I knew where I was I had found +salvation. And I was so happy, you wouldn't believe. I come out of that +Methodists' as free like as if I was coming out of a hospital, and God +knows I've been in a hospital often enough for my varicose veins, in the +legs, sir. You might almost have guessed I had 'em, sir, from the kind +way you told me to sit down, sir. And I was just wondering how I should +break it to Milcher, sir, because me passing St. Nicodemus made me think +of him--not as I'm not always thinking of him--and I looked up at the +clock--you know it's the only 'luminated church clock in the district, +sir, and the clock was just on eleven, sir, and I waited for it to +strike, sir, and it didn't strike. My feet was rooted to the spot, sir, +but no, that clock didn't strike, and then all of a sudden it rushed +over me about that young woman asking me all about the tower and the +clock and telling me as her young man was so interested in church-towers +and he wanted to go up, and would I lend her the keys of the tower-door +because Milcher always gives me the bunch of church-keys to keep for him +while he goes into the Horse and Groom public-house, sir, him not caring +to take church keys into a public-house. He's rather particular, sir. +They are, especially when they're sacristans. It rushed over me, and I +says to myself, 'Bolsheviks,' and I thought I should have swounded, but +I didn't." + +Mr. Prohack had to make an effort in order to maintain his self-control, +for the mumblings of the fat lady were producing in him the most +singular and the most disturbing sensations. + +"If there's any tea left in the pot," said he, "I think I'll have it." + +"_And_ welcome, sir," replied the fat lady. "But there's only one cup. +But I have but hardly drunk out of it, sir." + +Mr. Prohack first of all went to the door, transferred the key from the +outside to the inside, and locked the door. Then he drank the dregs of +the tea out of the sole cup; and seeing a packet of Mr. Brool's Gold +Flake cigarettes on the mahogany sideboard, he ventured to help himself +to one. + +"Yes, sir," resumed the fat lady. "I nearly swounded, and I couldn't +feel happy no more until I'd made a clean breast of it all to Milcher. +And I was setting off for Milcher when it struck me all of a heap as I'd +promised the young lady with the turned-up nose as I wouldn't say +nothing about the keys to nobody. It was very awkward for me, sir, me +being converted and anxious to do right, and not knowing which was right +and which was wrong. But a promise is a promise whether you're converted +or not--that I do hold. Anyhow I says to myself I must see Milcher and +tell him the clock hadn't struck eleven, and I prayed as hard as I could +for heavenly guidance, and I was just coming down the Square on my way +to Milcher's when who should I see get out of a taxi and run into this +house but that young lady and her young man. I said in my haste that was +an answer to prayer, sir, but I'm not so sure now as I wasn't presuming +too much. I could see there was something swanky a-going on here and I +said to myself, 'That young lady's gone in. She'll come out again; she's +one of the gues's, she is,' I said, 'and him too, and I'll wait till she +does come out and then I'll catch her and have it out with her even if +it means policemen.' And the area-gate being unfastened, I slipped down +the area-steps, sir, with my eye on the front-door. And that was what +did me. I had to sit down on the stone steps, sir, because of my +varicose veins and then one of the servants comes in _from_ the street, +sir, and I more like dropped down the area-steps, sir, than walked, sir, +and hid between two dustbins, and when the coast was clear I went up +again and found gate locked and nothing doing. And it's as true as I'm +standing here--sitting, I should say." + +Mr. Prohack paused, collecting himself, determined to keep his nerve +through everything. Then he said: + +"When did the mysterious young lady borrow the keys from you?" + +"Last night, sir, I mean the night before last." + +"And where are the keys now?" + +"Milcher's got 'em, sir. I lay he's up in the tower by this time, +a-worrying over that clock. It'll be in the papers--you see if it isn't, +sir." + +"And he's got no idea that you ever lent the keys?" + +"That he has not, sir. And the question is: must I tell him?" + +"What exactly are the relations between you and Mr. Milcher?" + +"Well, sir, he's a bit dotty about me, as you might say. And he's going +to marry me. So he says, and I believe him." + +And Mr. Prohack reflected, impressed by the wonder of existence: + +"This woman too has charm for somebody, who looks on her as the most +appetising morsel on earth." + +"Now," he said aloud, "you are good enough to ask my opinion whether you +ought to tell Mr. Milcher. My advice to you is: Don't. I applaud your +conversion. But as you say, a promise is a promise--even if it's a +naughty promise. You did wrong to promise. You will suffer for that, and +don't think your conversion will save you from suffering, because it +won't. Don't run away with the idea that conversion is a +patent-medicine. It isn't. It's rather a queer thing, very handy in some +ways and very awkward in others, and you must use it with commonsense or +you'll get both yourself and other people into trouble. As for the +clock, it's stopping striking is only a coincidence, obviously. Abandon +the word 'Bolshevik.' It's a very overworked word, and wants a long +repose. If the clock had been stopped from striking by your young +friends it would have stopped the evening before last, when they went up +the tower. And don't imagine there's any snub-nosed young lady living +here. There isn't. She must have left while you were down among the +dustbins, Mrs. Milcher--that is to be. She paid you something for your +trouble, quite possibly. If so, give the money to the poor. That will +be the best way to be converted." + +"So I will, sir." + +"Yes. And now you must go." He unlocked the door and opened it. "Quick. +Quietly. Into the area, and up the area-steps. And stop a moment. Don't +you be seen in the Square for at least a year. A big robbery was +committed in this very house last night. You'll see it in to-day's +papers. My butler connected your presence in the area--and quite +justifiably connected it--with the robbery. Without knowing it you've +been in the most dreadful danger. I'm saving you. If you don't use your +conversion with discretion it may land you in prison. Take my advice, +and be silent first and converted afterwards. Good morning. Tut-tut!" He +stopped the outflow of her alarmed gratitude. "Didn't I advise you to be +silent? Creep, Mrs. Milcher. Creep!" + + +V + +"Well, what have you said to her? What does she say? What have you done +with her?" questioned Eve excitedly, who had almost finished dressing +when Mr. Prohack, gorgeously, but by no means without misgivings, +entered her bedroom. + +"I've talked to her very seriously and let her go," answered Mr. +Prohack. + +Eve sat down as if stabbed on the chair in front of her dressing-table, +and stared at Mr. Prohack. + +"You've let her go!" cried she, with an outraged gasp, implying that she +had always suspected that she was married to a nincompoop, but not to +such a nincompoop. "Where's she gone to?" + +"I don't know." + +"What's her name? Who is she?" + +"I don't know that either. I only know that she's engaged to be married, +and that a certain sacristan is madly but I hope honourably in love with +her, and that she's had nothing whatever to do with the disappearance of +your necklace." + +"I suppose she told you so herself!" said Eve, with an irony that might +have shrivelled up a husband less philosophic. + +"She did not. She didn't say a word about the necklace. But she did make +a full confession. She's mixed up in the clock-striking business." + +"The what business?" + +"The striking of the church-clock. You know it's stopped striking since +last night, under the wise dispensation of heaven." + +As he made this perfectly simple announcement, Mr. Prohack observed a +sudden change in his wife's countenance. Her brow puckered: a sad, +protesting, worried look came into her eyes. + +"Please don't begin on the clock again, my poor Arthur! You ought to +forget it. You know how bad it is for you to dwell on it. It gets on +your nerves and you start imagining all sorts of things, until, of +course, there's no chance of you sleeping. If you keep on like this +you'll make me feel a perfect criminal for taking the house. You don't +suspect it, but I've several times wished we never had taken it--I've +been so upset about your nervous condition." + +"I was merely saying," Mr. Prohack insisted, "that our fat visitor, who +apparently has enormous seductive power over sacristans, had noticed +about the clock just as I had, and she thought--" + +Eve interrupted him by approaching swiftly and putting her hands on his +shoulders, as he had put his hands on her shoulders a little while +earlier, and gazing with supplication at him. + +"Please, please!" she besought him. "To oblige me. Do drop the +church-clock. I know what it means for you." + +Mr. Prohack turned away, broke into uproarious and somewhat hysterical +laughter, and left the bedroom, having perceived to his amazement that +she thought the church-clock was undermining his sanity. + +Going to his study, he rang the bell there, and Brool, with features +pale and drawn, obeyed the summons. The fact that his sanity was +suspect, however absurdly, somehow caused Mr. Prohack to assume a +pontifical manner of unusual dignity. + +"Is Miss Warburton up yet?" + +"No, sir. One of the servants knocked at her door some little time ago, +but received no answer." + +"She must be wakened, and I'll write a note that must be given to her +immediately." + +Mr. Prohack wrote: "Please dress at once and come to my study. I want to +see you about the church-clock. A.P." Then he waited, alternately +feeling the radiator and warming his legs at the newly-lit wood fire. He +was staggered by the incredible turn of events, and he had a sensation +that nothing was or ever would be secure in the structure of his +environment. + +"Well, I'm hanged! Well, I'm hanged!" he kept saying to himself, and +indeed several times asserted that an even more serious fate had +befallen him. + +"Here I am!" Mimi exclaimed brazenly, entering the room. + +The statement was not exaggerated. She emphatically was there, aspiring +nose and all--in full evening dress, the costume of the night before. + +"Have you slept in your clothes?" Mr. Prohack demanded. + +Her manner altered at his formidable tone. + +"No, sir," she replied meekly. "But I've nothing else here. I shall put +a cloak on and drive off in a taxi to change for the day. May I sit +down?" + +Mr. Prohack nodded. Indubitably she made a wonderful sight in her daring +splendour. + +"So you've found out all about it already!" said she, still meekly, +while Mr. Prohack was seeking the right gambit. "Please do tell me how," +she added, disposing the folds of her short skirt about the chair. + +"I'm not here to answer questions," said Mr. Prohack. "I'm here to ask +them. How did you do it? And was it you or Charlie or both of you? Whose +idea was it?" + +"It was my idea," Mimi purred. "But Mr. Charles seemed to like it. It +was really very simple. We first of all found out about the sexton." + +"And how did you do that?" + +"Private enquiry agents, of course. Same people who were in charge here +last night. I knew of them when I was with Mr. Carrel Quire, and it was +I who introduced them to Mrs. Prohack." + +"It would be!" Mr. Prohack commented. "And then?" + +"And then when we'd discovered Mrs. Slipstone--or Miss Slipstone--" + +"Who's she?" + +"She's a rather stout charwoman who has a fascination for the sexton of +St. Nicodemus. When I'd got her it was all plain sailing. She lent me +the church keys and Mr. Charles and I went up the tower to reconnoitre." + +"But that was more than twenty-four hours before the clock ceased to +strike, and you returned the keys to her." + +"Oh! So you know that too, do you?" said Mimi blandly. "Mr. Prohack, I +hope you'll forgive me for saying that you're most frightfully clever. I +_did_ give the keys back to Mrs. Slipstone a long time before the clock +stopped striking, but you see, Mr. Charles had taken an impression of +the tower key in clay, so that last night we were able to go up with an +electric torch and our own key. The clock is a very old one, and Mr. +Charles removed a swivel or something--I forget what he called it, but +he seems to understand everything about every kind of machinery. He +says it would take a tremendous long time to get another swivel, or +whatever it is, cast, even if it ever could be cast without a pattern, +and that you'll be safe for at least six months, even if we don't rely +on the natural slowness of the Established Church to do anything really +active. You see it isn't as if the clock wasn't going. It's showing the +time all right, and that will be sufficient to keep the rector and the +church-wardens quiet. It keeps up appearances. Of course if the clock +had stopped entirely they would have had to do something.... You don't +seem very pleased, dear Mr. Prohack. We thought you'd be delighted. We +did it all for you." + +"Did you indeed!" said Mr. Prohack ruthlessly. "And did you think of the +riskiness of what you were doing? There'll be a most appalling scandal, +certainly police-court proceedings, and I shall be involved, if it comes +to light." + +"But it can't come to light!" Mimi exploded. + +"And yet it came to my light." + +"Yes, I expect Mr. Charles was so proud that he couldn't help telling +you some bits about it. But nobody else can know. Even if Mrs. Slipstone +lets on to the sexton, the sexton will never let on because if he did +he'd lose his place. The sexton will always have to deny that he parted +with the keys even for a moment. It will be the loveliest mystery that +ever was, and all the police in the world won't solve it. Of course, if +you aren't pleased, I'm very sorry." + +"It isn't a question of not being pleased. The breath is simply knocked +out of me--that's what it is! Whatever possessed you to do it?" + +"But something had to be done, Mr. Prohack. Everybody in the house was +terribly upset about you. You couldn't sleep because of the clock, and +you said you never would sleep. Mrs. Prohack was at her wit's end." + +"Everybody in the house was terribly upset about me! This is the first +I've heard of anybody being terribly upset about me. I thought that +everybody except me had forgotten all about the infernal clock." + +"Naturally!" said Mimi, with soothing calmness. "Mrs. Prohack quite +rightly forbade any mention of the clock in your presence. She said the +best thing to do was to help you to forget it by never referring to it, +and we all agreed with her. But it weighed on us dreadfully. And +something really had to be done." + +Mr. Prohack was not unimpressed by this revelation of the existence of +a social atmosphere which he had never suspected. But he was in no mood +for compromise. + +"Now just listen to me," said he. "You are without exception the most +dangerous woman that I have ever met. All women are dangerous, but you +are an acute peril." + +"Yes," Mimi admitted, "Mr. Carrel Quire used to talk like that. I got +quite used to it." + +"Did he really? Well, I think all the better of him, then. The mischief +with you is that your motives are good. But a good motive is no excuse +for a criminal act, and still less excuse for an idiotic act. I don't +suppose I shall do any good by warning you, yet I do hereby most +solemnly warn you to mend your ways. And I wish you to understand +clearly that I am not a bit grateful to you. In fact the reverse." + +Mimi stiffened herself. + +"Perhaps you would prefer us to restore the missing part and start the +clock striking again. It would be perfectly easy. We still have our own +key to the tower and we could do it to-night. I am sure it will be at +least a week before the church-wardens send an expert clock-maker up the +tower." + +In that moment Mr. Prohack had a distressing glimpse into the illogical +peculiarities of the human conscience, especially his own. He knew that +he ought to accept Mimi's offer, since it would definitely obviate the +possible consequences of a criminal act and close a discreditable +incident. But he thought of his bad nights instead of thinking of Mimi's +morals and the higher welfare of society. + +"No," he said. "Let sleeping clocks lie." And he saw that Mimi read the +meanness of his soul and was silently greeting him as a fellow-sinner. + +She surprised him by saying: + +"I assure you, Mr. Prohack, that my sole idea--that our sole idea--was +to make the house more possible for you." And as she uttered these words +she gazed at him with a sort of delicious pouting, challenging reproach. + +What a singular remark, he thought! It implied a comprehension of the +fact, which he had considerately never disclosed, that he objected to +the house _in toto_ and would have been happier in his former abode. +And, curiously, it implied further that she comprehended and sympathised +with his objections. She knew she had not done everything necessary to +reconcile him to the noble mansion, but she had done what she could--and +it was not negligible. + +"Nothing of the kind," said he. "You simply had no 'sole idea.' When I +admitted just now that your motives were good I was exaggerating. Your +motives were only half good, and if you think otherwise you are +deceiving yourself; you are not being realistic. In that respect you are +no better than anybody else." + +"What was my other motive, then?" she enquired submissively, as if +appealing for information to the greatest living authority on the +enigmas of her own heart. + +"Your other motive was to satisfy your damnable instinct for dubious and +picturesque adventure," said Mr. Prohack. "You were pandering to the +evil in you. If you could have stopped the clock from striking by +walking down Bond Street in Mrs. Slipstone's clothes and especially her +boots, would you have done it? Certainly not. Of course you wouldn't. +Don't try to come the self-sacrificing saint over me, because you can't +do it." + +These words, even if amounting to a just estimate of the situation, were +ruthless and terrible. They might have accomplished some genuine and +lasting good if Mr. Prohack had spoken them in a tone corresponding to +their import. But he did not. His damnable instinct for pleasing people +once more got the better of him, and he spoke them in a benevolent and +paternal tone, his voice vibrating with compassion and with appreciation +of her damnable instinct for dubious and picturesque adventure. The tone +destroyed the significance of the words. + +Moreover, not content with the falsifying tone, he rose up from his +chair as he spoke, approached the charming and naughty girl, and patted +her on the shoulder. The rebuke, indeed, ended by being more agreeable +to the sinner than praise might have been from a man less corroded with +duplicity than Mr. Prohack. + +Mimi surprised him a second time. + +"You're perfectly right," she said. "You always are." And she seized his +limp hand in hers and kissed it,--and ran away, leaving him looking at +the kissed hand. + +Well, he was flattered, and he was pleased; or at any rate something in +him, some fragmentary part of him, was flattered and pleased. Mimi's +gesture was a triumph for a man nearing fifty; but it was an alarming +triumph.... Odd that in that moment he should think of Lady Massulam! +His fatal charm was as a razor. Had he been playing with it as a baby +might play with a razor?... Popinjay? Coxcomb? Perhaps, Nevertheless, +the wench had artistically kissed his hand, and his hand felt +self-complacent, even if he didn't. + +Brool, towards whom Mr. Prohack felt no impulse of good-will, came +largely in with a salver on which were the morning letters and the +morning papers, including the paper perused by Machin with her early +bedside tea and doubtless carefully folded again in its original creases +to look virginal. + +The reappearance of that sheet had somewhat the quality of a sinister +miracle to Mr. Prohack. He asked no questions about it so that he might +be told no lies, but he searched it in vain for a trace of the suffering +Machin. It was, however, full of typographical traces of himself and his +family. The description of the reception was disturbingly journalistic, +which adjective, for Mr. Prohack, unfortunately connoted the adjective +vulgar. All the wrong people were in the list of guests, and all the +decent quiet people were omitted. A value of twenty thousand pounds was +put upon the necklace, contradicting another part of the report which +stated the pearls to be "priceless." Mr. Prohack's fortune was referred +to; also his Treasury past; the implication being that the fortune had +caused him to leave the Treasury. His daughter's engagement to Mr. +Morfey was glanced at; and it was remarked that Mr. Morfey--"known to +all his friends and half London as 'Ozzie' Morfey"--was intimately +connected with the greatest stage Napoleon in history, Mr. Asprey Chown. +Finally a few words were given to Charlie; who was dubbed "a budding +financier already responsible for one highly successful _coup_ and +likely to be responsible for several others before much more water has +run under the bridges of the Thames." + +Mr. Prohack knew, then, in his limbs the meaning of the word "writhe," +and he was glad that he had not had his bath, because even if he had had +his bath he would have needed another one. His attitude towards his +fellow men had a touch of embittered and cynical scorn unworthy of a +philosopher. He turned, in another paper, to the financial column, for, +though all his money was safe in fixed-interest-bearing securities, the +fluctuations of whose capital value could not affect his safety, yet he +somehow could not remain quite indifferent to the fluctuations of their +capital value; and in the financial column he saw a reference to a +"young operator," who, he was convinced, could be no other than Charlie; +in the reference there was a note of sarcasm which hurt Mr. Prohack and +aroused anew his apprehensions. + +And among his correspondence was a letter which had been delivered by +hand. He thought he knew the handwriting on the envelope, and he did: it +was from Mr. Softly Bishop. Mr. Softly Bishop begged, in a very familiar +style, that Mr. Prohack and wife would join himself and Miss Fancy on an +early day at a little luncheon party, and he announced that the 'highly +desirable event to the possibility of which he had alluded' on the +previous evening, had duly occurred. Strange, the fellow's eagerness to +publish his engagement to a person of more notoriety than distinction! +The fellow must have "popped the question" while escorting Miss Fancy +home in the middle of the night, and he must have written the note +before breakfast and despatched it by special messenger. What a +mentality! + +Mr. Prohack desired now a whole series of baths. And he was very +harassed indeed. If he, by a fluke, had discovered the escapade of the +church-tower and the church-clock, why should not others discover it by +other flukes? Was it conceivable that such a matter should forever +remain a secret? The thing, to Mr. Prohack's sick imagination, was like +a bomb with a fuse attached and the fuse lighted. When the bomb did go +off, what trouble for an entirely innocent Mr. Prohack! And he loathed +the notion of his proud, strong daughter being affianced to a man who, +however excellent intrinsically, was the myrmidon of that sublime +showman, Mr. Asprey Chown. And he hated his connection with Mr. Softly +Bishop and with Miss Fancy. Could he refuse the invitation to the little +luncheon party? He knew that he could not refuse it. His connection with +these persons was indisputable and the social consequences of it could +not be fairly avoided. As for the matter of the necklace, he held that +he could deal with that,--but could he? He lacked confidence in himself. +Even his fixed interest-bearing securities might, by some inconceivable +world-catastrophe, cease to bear interest, and then where would he be? + +Philosophy! Philosophy was absurdly unpractical. Philosophy could not +cope with real situations. Where had he sinned? Nowhere. He had taken +Dr. Veiga's advice and given up trying to fit his environment to himself +instead of vice versa. He had let things rip and shown no egotistic +concern in the business of others. But was he any better off in his +secret soul? Not a whit. He ought to have been happy; he was miserable. +On every hand the horizon was dark, and the glitter of seventeen +thousand pounds per annum did not lighten it by the illuminative power +of a single candle.... But his feverish hand gratefully remembered +Mimi's kiss. + + +VI + +Nevertheless, as the day waxed and began to wane, it was obvious even to +Mr. Prohack that the domestic climate grew sunnier and more bracing. A +weight seemed to have been lifted from the hearts of all Mr. Prohack's +entourage. The theft of the twenty thousand pound necklace was a grave +event, but it could not impair the beauty of the great fact that the +church-clock had ceased to strike, and that therefore the master would +be able to sleep. The shadow of a menacing calamity had passed, and +everybody's spirits, except Mr. Prohack's, reacted to the news; Machin, +restored to duty, was gaiety itself; but Mr. Prohack, unresponsive, kept +on absurdly questioning his soul and the universe: "What am I getting +out of life? Can it be true that I am incapable of arranging my +existence in such a manner that the worm shall not feed so gluttonously +on my damask cheek?" + +Eve's attitude to him altered. In view of the persistent silence of the +clock she had to admit to herself that her husband was still a long way +off insanity, and she was ashamed of her suspicion and did all that she +could to make compensation to him, while imitating his discreet example +and not referring even distantly to the clock. When she mentioned the +necklace, suggesting a direct appeal to Scotland Yard, and he +discountenanced the scheme, she at once in the most charming way +accepted his verdict and praised his superior wisdom. When he placed +before her the invitation from Mr. Softly Bishop, she beautifully +offered to disentangle him from it if he should so desire. When she told +him that she had been asked to preside over the Social Amenities +Committee of the League of all the Arts, and he advised her not to bind +herself by taking any official position, and especially one which would +force her into contact with a pack of self-seeking snobbish women, she +beamed acquiescence and heartily concurred with him about the pack of +women. In fact the afternoon became one of those afternoons on which +every caprice was permitted to Mr. Prohack and he could do no wrong. But +the worm still fed on his cheek. + +Before tea he enjoyed a sleep, without having to time his repose so as +to avoid being wakened by the clock. And then tea for one was served +with full pomp in his study. This meant either that his tireless women +were out, or that Eve had judged it prudent to indulge him in a solitary +tea; and, after the hurried thick-cupped teas at the Treasury, he +certainly did not dislike a leisurely tea replete with every luxury +proper to the repast. He ate, drank, and read odd things in odd corners +of _The Times_, and at last he smoked. + +He was on the edge of felicity in his miserableness when his +indefatigable women entered, all smiles. They had indeed been out, and +they were still arrayed for the street. One by one they removed or cast +aside such things as gloves, hats, coats, bags, until the study began to +bear some resemblance to a boudoir. Mr. Prohack, though cheerfully +grumbling at this, really liked it, for he was of those who think that +nothing furnishes a room so well as a woman's hat, provided it be not +permanently established. + +Sissie even took off one shoe, on the plea that it hurt her, and there +the trifling article lay, fragile, gleaming and absurd. Mr. Prohack +appreciated it even more than the hats. He understood, perhaps better +than ever before, that though he had a vast passion for his wife, there +was enough emotion left in him to nourish an affection almost equally +vast for his daughter. She was a proud piece, was that girl, and he was +intensely proud of her. Nor did a realistic estimate of her faults of +character seem in the least to diminish his pride in her. She had +distinction; she had race. Mimi might possibly be able to make rings +round her in the pursuit of any practical enterprise, but her mere +manner of existing from moment to moment was superior to Mimi's. The +simple-minded parent was indeed convinced at heart that the world held +no finer young woman than Sissie Prohack. He reflected with +satisfaction: "She knows I'm old, but there's something young in me that +forces her to treat me as young; and moreover she adores me." He also +reflected: "Of course they're after something, these two. I can see a +put-up job in their eyes." Ah! He was ready for them, and the sensation +of being ready for them was like a tonic to him, raising him momentarily +above misery. + +"You look much better, Arthur," said Eve, artfully preparing. + +"I am," said he. "I've had a bath." + +"Had you given up baths, dad?" asked Sissie, with a curl of the lips. + +"No! But I mean I've had two baths. One in water and the other in +resignation." + +"How dull!" + +"I've been thinking about the arrangements for the wedding," Eve started +in a new, falsely careless tone, ignoring the badinage between her +husband and daughter, which she always privately regarded as tedious. + +There it was! They had come to worry him about the wedding. He had not +recovered from one social martyrdom before they were plotting to push +him into another. They were implacable, insatiable, were his women. He +got up and walked about. + +"Now, dad," Sissie addressed him. "Don't pretend you aren't interested." +And then she burst into the most extraordinary laughter--laughter that +bordered on the hysterical--and twirled herself round on the shod foot. +Her behaviour offended Eve. + +"Of course if you're going on like that, Sissie, I warn you I shall give +it all up. After all, it won't be my wedding." + +Sissie clasped her mother's neck. + +"Don't be foolish, you silly old mater. It's a wedding, not a funeral." + +"Well, what about it?" asked Mr. Prohack, sniffing with pleasure the new +atmosphere created in his magnificent study by these feminine contacts. + +"Do you think we'd better have the wedding at St. George's, Hanover +Square, or at St. Nicodemus's?" + +At the name of Nicodemus, Mr. Prohack started, as it were guiltily. + +"Because," Eve continued, "we can have it at either place. You see Ozzie +lives in one parish and Sissie in the other. St. Nicodemus has been +getting rather fashionable lately, I'm told." + +"What saith the bride?" + +"Oh, don't ask me!" answered Sissie lightly. "I'm prepared for anything. +It's mother's affair, not mine, in spite of what she says. And nobody +shall be able to say after I'm married that I wasn't a dutiful daughter. +I should love St. George's and I should love St. Nicodemus's too." And +then she exploded again into disconcerting laughter, and the fit lasted +longer than the first one. + +Eve protested again and Sissie made peace again. + +"St. Nicodemus would be more original," said Eve. + +"Not so original as you," said Mr. Prohack. + +Sissie choked on a lace handkerchief. St. Nicodemus was selected for the +august rite. Similar phenomena occurred when Eve introduced the point +whether the reception should be at Manchester Square or at Claridge's +Hotel. And when Eve suggested that it might be well to enliven the +mournfulness of a wedding with an orchestra and dancing, Sissie leaped +up and seizing her father's hand whizzed him dangerously round the room +to a tuna of her own singing. The girl's mere physical force amazed him +The dance was brought to a conclusion by the overturning of an +occasional table and a Tanagra figure. Whereupon Sissie laughed more +loudly and hysterically than ever. + +Mr. Prohack deemed that masculine tact should be applied. He soothed the +outraged mother and tranquillised the ecstatic daughter, and then in a +matter-of-fact voice asked: "And what about the date? Do let's get it +over." + +"We must consult Ozzie," said the pacified mamma. + +Off went Sissie again into shrieks. + +"You needn't," she spluttered. "It's not Ozzie's wedding. It's mine. You +fix your own date, dearest, and leave Ozzie to me, Ozzie's only function +at my wedding is to be indispensable." And still laughing in the most +crude and shocking way she ran on her uneven feet out of the room, +leaving the shoe behind on the hearth-rug to prove that she really +existed and was not a hallucination. + +"I can't make out what's the matter with that girl," said Eve. + +"The sooner she's married the better," said Mr. Prohack, thoroughly +reconciled now to the tedium of the ceremonies. + +"I daresay you're right. But upon my word I don't know what girls are +coming to," said Eve. + +"Nobody ever did know that," said Mr. Prohack easily, though he also was +far from easy in his mind about the bridal symptoms. + + +VII + +"Can Charlie speak to you for a minute?" The voice was Eve's, +diplomatic, apologetic. Her smiling and yet serious face, peeping in +through the bedroom door, seemed to say: "I know we're asking a great +favour and that your life is hard." + +"All right," said Mr. Prohack, as a gracious, long-suffering autocrat, +without moving his eyes from the book he was reading. + +He had gone to bed. He had of late got into the habit of going to bed. +He would go to bed on the slightest excuse, and would justify himself by +pointing out that Voltaire used to do the same. He was capable of going +to bed several times a day. It was early evening. The bed, though hired +for a year only, was of extreme comfortableness. The light over his head +was in exactly the right place. The room was warm. The book, by a Roman +Emperor popularly known as Marcus Aurelius, counted among the world's +masterpieces. It was designed to suit the case of Mr. Prohack, for its +message was to the effect that happiness and content are commodities +which can be manufactured only in the mind, from the mind's own +ingredients, and that if the mind works properly no external phenomena +can prevent the manufacture of the said commodities. In short, +everything was calculated to secure Mr. Prohack's felicity in that +moment. But he would not have it. He said to himself: "This book is all +very fine, immortal, supreme, and so on. Only it simply isn't true. +Human nature won't work the way this book says it ought to work; and +what's more the author was obviously afraid of life, he was never +really alive and he was never happy. Finally the tendency of the book is +mischievously anti-social." Thus did Mr. Prohack seek to destroy a +reputation of many centuries and to deny opinions which he himself had +been expressing for many years. + +"I don't want to live wholly in myself," said Mr. Prohack. "I want to +live a great deal in other people. If you do that you may be infernally +miserable but at least you aren't dull. Marcus Aurelius was more like a +potato than I should care to be." + +And he shoved the book under the pillow, turned half-over from his side +to the flat of his back, and prepared with gusto for the evil which +Charlie would surely bring. And indeed one glance at Charlie's +preoccupied features confirmed his prevision. + +"You're in trouble, my lad," said he. + +"I am," said Charlie. + +"And the hour has struck when you want your effete father's help," Mr. +Prohack smiled benevolently. + +"Put it like that," said Charlie amiably, taking a chair and smoothing +out his trousers. + +"I suppose you've seen the references to yourself in the papers?" + +"Yes." + +"Rather sarcastic, aren't they?" + +"Yes. But that rather flatters me, you know, dad. Shows I'm being taken +notice of." + +"Still, you _have_ been playing a dangerous game, haven't you?" + +"Admitted," said Charlie, brightly and modestly. "But I was reading in +one of my new books that it is not a bad scheme to live dangerously, and +I quite agree. Anyhow it suits me. And it's quite on the cards that I +may pull through." + +"You mean if I help you. Now listen to me, Charlie. I'm your father, and +if you're on earth it's my fault, and everything that happens to you is +my fault. Hence I'm ready to help you as far as I can, which is a long +way, but I'm not ready to throw my money into a pit unless you can prove +to my hard Treasury mind that the pit is not too deep and has a firm +unbreakable bottom. Rather than have anything to do with a pit that has +all attractive qualities except a bottom, I would prefer to see you in +the Bankruptcy Court and make you an allowance for life." + +"That's absolutely sound," Charlie concurred with beautiful +acquiescence. "And it's awfully decent of you to talk like this. I +expect I could soon prove to you that my pit is the sort of pit you +wouldn't mind throwing things into, and possibly one day I might ask +you to do some throwing. But I'm getting along pretty well so far as +money is concerned. I've come to ask you for something else." + +"Oh!" Mr. Prohack was a little dashed. But Charlie's demeanour was so +ingratiating that he did not feel in the least hurt. + +"Yes. There's been some trouble between Mimi and me this afternoon, and +I'm hoping that you'll straighten it out for me." + +"Ah!" Mr. Prohack's interest became suddenly intense and pleasurable. + +"The silly girl's given me notice. She's fearfully hurt because you told +her that I told you about the church-clock affair, after it had been +agreed between her and me that we wouldn't let on to anybody at all. She +says that she can't possibly stay with anybody who isn't loyal, and that +I'm not the man she thought I was, and she's given notice!... And I +can't do without that girl! I knew she'd be perfectly invaluable to me, +and she is." + +Mr. Prohack was staggered at this revelation concerning Mimi. It seemed +to make her heroic and even more incalculable. + +"But _I_ never told her you'd told me anything about the clock-striking +business!" he exclaimed. + +"I felt sure you hadn't," said Charlie, blandly. "I wonder how she got +the idea into her head." + +"Now I come to think of it," said Mr. Prohack, "she did assume this +morning that you must have told me about the clock, and I didn't +contradict her. Why should I!" + +"Just so," Charlie smiled faintly. "But I'd be awfully obliged if you'd +contradict her now. One word from you will put it all right." + +"I'll ask her to come and see me first thing in the morning," said Mr. +Prohack. "But would you believe it, my lad, that she never gave me the +slightest sign this morning that your telling me anything about the +clock would upset her. Not the slightest sign!" + +"Oh! She wouldn't!" said Charlie. "She's like that. She's the strangest +mixture of reserve and rashness you ever saw." + +"No, she isn't. Because they're all the strangest mixture--except of +course your esteemed mother, who we all agree is perfect. Anything else +I can do for you to-night?" + +"You might tell me how you _did_ find out about the church-clock." + +"With pleasure. The explanation will surprise you. I found out because +in my old-world way I'm jolly clever. And that's all there is to it." + +"Good night, dad. Thanks very much." + +After Charlie had gone, Mr. Prohack said to himself: "That boy's getting +on. I can remember the time when he would have come snorting in here +full of his grievance, and been very sarcastic when I offered him money +he didn't want. What a change! Oh, yes, he's getting on all right. He'll +come through." + +And Mr. Prohack was suddenly much fonder of the boy and more inclined to +see in him the possibility of genius. But he was aware of apprehension +as to the relations forming between his son and Mimi. That girl appeared +to be establishing an empire over the great youthful prodigy of finance. +Was this desirable?... No, that was not the question. The question was: +Would Eve regard it as desirable? He could never explain to his wife how +deeply he had been touched by Mimi's mad solicitude for the slumber of +Charlie's father. And even if he could have explained Eve would never +have consented to understand. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +EVE'S MARTYRDOM + +I + + +After a magnificent night's sleep, so magnificent indeed that he felt as +if he had never until that moment really grasped the full significance +of the word "sleep," Mr. Prohack rang the bell for his morning tea. Of +late he had given orders that he must not under any circumstances be +called, for it had been vouchsafed to him that in spite of a multitude +of trained servants there were still things that he could do for himself +better than anybody else could do for him, and among them was the act of +waking up Mr. Prohack. He knew that he was in a very good humour, +capable of miracles, and he therefore determined that he would seize the +opportunity to find the human side of Mr. Brool and make a friend of +him. But the tea-tray was brought in by Mrs. Prohack, who was completely +and severely dressed. She put down the tray and kissed her husband not +as usual, but rather in the manner of a Roman matron, and Mr. Prohack +divined that something had happened. + +"I hope Brool hasn't dropped down dead," said he, realising the +foolishness of his facetiousness as he spoke. + +Eve seemed to be pained. + +"Have you slept better?" she asked, solicitous. + +"I have slept so well that there's probably something wrong with me," +said he. "Heavy sleep is a symptom of several dangerous diseases." + +"I'm glad you've had a good night," she began, again ignoring his +maladroit flippancy, "because I want to talk to you." + +"Darling," he responded. "Pour out my tea for me, will you? Then I shall +be equal to any strain. I trust that you also passed a fair night, +madam. You look tremendously fit." + +Visions of Lady Massulam flitted through his mind, but he decided that +Eve, seriously pouring out tea for him under the lamp in the morning +twilight of the pale bedroom, could not be matched by either Lady +Massulam or anybody else. No, he could not conceive a Lady Massulam +pouring out early tea; the Lady Massulams could only pour out afternoon +tea--a job easier to do with grace and satisfaction. + +"I have not slept a wink all night," said Eve primly. "But I was +determined that nothing should induce me to disturb you." + +"Yes?" Mr. Prohack encouraged her, sipping the first glorious sip. + +"Well, will you believe me that Sissie slipped out last night after +dinner without saying a word to me or any one, and that she didn't come +back and hasn't come back? I sat up for her till three o'clock--I +telephoned to Charlie, but no! he'd seen nothing of her." + +"Did you telephone to Ozzie?" + +"Telephone to Ozzie, my poor boy! Of course I didn't. I wouldn't have +Ozzie know for anything. Besides, he isn't on the telephone at his +flat." + +"That's a good reason for not telephoning, anyway," said Mr. Prohack. + +"But did you ever hear of such a thing? The truth is, you've spoilt that +child." + +"I may have spoilt the child," Mr. Prohack admitted. "But I have heard +of such a thing. I seem to remember that in the dear dead days of +dancing studios, something similar occurred to your daughter." + +"Yes, but we did know where she was." + +"You didn't. I did," Mr. Prohack corrected her. + +"Do you want me to cry?" Eve demanded suddenly. + +"Yes," said Mr. Prohack. "I love to see you cry." + +Eve pursed her lips and wrinkled her brows and gazed at the window, +performing great feats of self-control under extreme provocation to lose +her temper. + +"What do you propose to do?" she asked with formality. + +"Wait till the girl comes back," said Mr. Prohack. + +"Arthur! I really cannot understand how you can take a thing like this +so casually! No, I really can't!" + +"Neither can I!" Mr. Prohack admitted, quite truthfully. + +He saw that he ought to have been gravely upset by Sissie's prank and he +was merely amused. "Effect of too much sleep, no doubt," he added. + +Eve walked about the room. + +"I pretended to Machin this morning that Sissie had told me that she was +sleeping out, and that I had forgotten to tell Machin. It's a good thing +we haven't engaged lady's maids yet. I can trust Machin. I know she +didn't believe me this morning, but I can trust her. You see, after +Sissie's strange behaviour these last few days.... One doesn't know what +to think. And there's something else. Every morning for the last three +or four weeks Sissie's gone out somewhere, for an hour or two, quite +regularly. And where she went I've never been able to find out. Of +course with a girl like her it doesn't do to ask too direct +questions.... Ah! I should like to have seen my mother in my place. I +know what she'd have done!" + +"What would your mother have done? She always seemed to me to be a +fairly harmless creature." + +"Yes, to you!... Do you think we ought to inform the police!" + +"No!" + +"I'm so glad. The necklace and Sissie coming on top of each other! No, +it would be too much!" + +"It never rains but it pours, does it?" observed Mr. Prohack. + +"But what _are_ we to do?" + +"Just what your mother would have done. Your mother would have argued +like this: Either Sissie is staying away against her will or she is +staying away of her own accord. If the former, it means an accident, and +we are bound to hear shortly from one of the hospitals. If the latter, +we can only sit tight. Your mother had a vigorous mind and that is how +she would have looked at things." + +"I never know how to take you, Arthur," said Mrs. Prohack, and went on: +"And what makes it all the more incomprehensible is that yesterday +afternoon Sissie went with me to Jay's to see about the wedding-dress." + +"But why should that make it all the more incomprehensible?" + +"Don't you think it does, somehow? I do." + +"Did she giggle at Jay's?" + +"Oh, no! Except once. Yes, I think she giggled once. That was when the +fitter said she hoped we should give them plenty of time, because most +customers rushed them so. I remember thinking how queer it was that +Sissie should laugh so much at a perfectly simple remark like that. Oh! +Arthur!" + +"Now, my child," said Mr. Prohack firmly. "Don't get into your head that +Sissie has gone off hers. Yesterday you thought for quite half an hour +that I was suffering from incipient lunacy. Let that suffice you for the +present. Be philosophical. The source of tranquillity is within. +Remember that, and remind me of it too, because I'm apt to forget it.... +We can do nothing at the moment. I will now get up, and I warn you that +I shall want a large breakfast and you to pour out my coffee and read +the interesting bits out of _The Daily Picture_ to me." + +At eleven o'clock of the morning the _status quo_ was still maintaining +itself within the noble mansion at Manchester Square. Mr. Prohack, +washed, dressed, and amply fed, was pretending to be very busy with +correspondence in his study, but he was in fact much more busy with Eve +than with the correspondence. She came in to him every few minutes, and +each time needed more delicate handling. After one visit Mr. Prohack had +an idea. He transferred the key from the inside to the outside of the +door. At the next visit Eve presented an ultimatum. She said that Mr. +Prohack must positively do something about his daughter. Mr. Prohack +replied that he would telephone to his solicitors: a project which +happily commended itself to Eve, though what his solicitors could do +except charge a fee Mr. Prohack could not imagine. + +"You wait here," said he persuasively. + +He then left the room and silently locked the door on Eve. It was a +monstrous act, but Mr. Prohack had slept too well and was too fully +inspired by the instinct of initiative. He hurried downstairs, ignoring +Brool, who was contemplating the grandeur of the entrance hall, snatched +his overcoat, hat, and umbrella from the seventeenth-century panelled +cupboard in which these articles were kept, and slipped away into the +Square, before Brool could even open the door for him. As he fled he +glanced up at the windows of his study, fearful lest Eve might have +divined his purpose to abandon her and, catching sight of him in flight, +might begin making noises on the locked door. But Eve had not divined +his purpose. + +Mr. Prohack walked straight to Bruton Street, where Oswald Morfey's +Japanese flat was situated. Mr. Prohack had never seen this flat, though +his wife and daughter had been invited to it for tea--and had returned +therefrom with excited accounts of its exquisite uniqueness. He had +decided that his duty was to inform Ozzie of the mysterious +disappearance of Sissie as quickly as possible; and, as Ozzie's +theatrical day was not supposed to begin until noon, he hoped to catch +him before his departure to the beck and call of the mighty Asprey +Chown. + +The number in Bruton Street indicated a tall, thin house with four +bell-pushes and four narrow brass-plates on its door-jamb. The deceitful +edifice looked at a distance just like its neighbours, but, as the array +on the door-jamb showed, it had ceased to be what it seemed, the home of +a respectable Victorian family in easy circumstances, and had become a +Georgian warren for people who could reconcile themselves to a common +staircase provided only they might engrave a sound West End address on +their notepaper. The front-door was open, disclosing the reassuring fact +that the hall and staircase were at any rate carpeted. Mr. Prohack rang +the bell attached to Ozzie's name, waited, rang again, waited, and then +marched upstairs. Perhaps Ozzie was shaving. Not being accustomed to the +organisation of tenements in fashionable quarters, Mr. Prohack was +unaware that during certain hours of the day he was entitled to ring the +housekeeper's bell, on the opposite door-jamb, and to summon help from +the basement. + +As he mounted it the staircase grew stuffier and stuffier, but the +condition of the staircarpet improved. Mr. Prohack hated the place, and +at once determined to fight powerfully against Sissie's declared +intention of starting married life in her husband's bachelor-flat, for +the sake of economy. He would force the pair, if necessary, to accept +from him a flat rent-free, or he would even purchase for them one of +those bijou residences of which he had heard tell. He little dreamed +that this very house had once been described as a bijou residence. The +third floor landing was terribly small and dark, and Mr. Prohack could +scarcely decipher the name of his future son-in-law on the shabby +name-plate. + +"This den would be dear at elevenpence three farthings a year," said he +to himself, and was annoyed because for months he had been picturing the +elegant Oswald as the inhabitant of something orientally and impeccably +luxurious, and he wondered that his women, as a rule so critical, had +breathed no word of the flat's deplorable approaches. + +He rang the bell, and the bell made a violent and horrid sound, which +could scarcely fail to be heard throughout the remainder of the house. +No answer! Ozzie had gone. He descended the stairs, and on the +second-floor landing saw an old lady putting down a mat in front of an +open door. The old lady's hair was in curl-papers. + +"I suppose," he ventured, raising his hat. "I suppose you don't happen +to know whether Mr. Morfey has gone out?" + +The old lady scanned him before replying. + +"He can't be gone out," she answered. "He's just been sweeping his floor +enough to wake the dead." + +"Sweeping his floor!" exclaimed Mr. Prohack, shocked, thunderstruck. "I +understood these were service flats." + +"So they are--in a way, but the housekeeper never gets up to this floor +before half past twelve; so it can't be the housekeeper. Besides, she's +gone out for me." + +"Thank you," said Mr. Prohack, and remounted the staircase. His blood +was up. He would know the worst about the elegant Oswald, even if he had +to beat the door down. He was, however, saved from this extreme measure, +for when he aimlessly pushed against Oswald's door it opened. + +He beheld a narrow passage, which in the matter of its decoration +certainly did present a Japanese aspect to Mr. Prohack, who, however, +had never been to Japan. Two doors gave off the obscure corridor. One of +these doors was open, and in the doorway could be seen the latter half +of a woman and the forward half of a carpet-brush. She was evidently +brushing the carpet of a room and gradually coming out of the room and +into the passage. She wore a large blue pinafore apron, and she was so +absorbed in her business that the advent of Mr. Prohack passed quite +unnoticed by her. Mr. Prohack waited. More of the woman appeared, and at +last the whole of her. She felt, rather than saw, the presence of a man +at the entrance, and she looked up, transfixed. A deep blush travelled +over all her features. + +"How clever of you!" she said, with a fairly successful effort to be +calm. + +"Good morning, my child," said Mr. Prohack, with a similar and equally +successful effort. "So you're cleaning Mr. Morfey's flat for him." + +"Yes. And not before it needed it. Do come in and shut the door." Mr. +Prohack obeyed, and Sissie shed her pinafore apron. "Now we're quite +private. I think you'd better kiss me. I may as well tell you that I'm +fearfully happy--much more so than I expected to be at first." + +Mr. Prohack again obeyed, and when he kissed his daughter he had an +almost entirely new sensation. The girl was far more interesting to him +than she had ever been. Her blush thrilled him. + +"You might care to glance at that," said Sissie, with an affectation of +carelessness, indicating a longish, narrowish piece of paper covered +with characters in red and black, which had been affixed to the wall of +the passage with two pins. "We put it there--at least I did--to save +trouble." + +Mr. Prohack scanned the document. It began: "This is to certify--" and +it was signed by a "Registrar of births, deaths, and marriages." + +"Yesterday, eh?" he ejaculated. + +"Yes. Yesterday, at two o'clock. _Not_ at St George's and _not_ at St +Nicodemus's.... Well, you can say what you like, dad--" + +"I'm not aware of having said anything yet," Mr. Prohack put in. + +"You can say what you like, but what _did_ you expect me to do? It was +necessary to bring home to some people that this is the twentieth +century, not the nineteenth, and I think I've done it. And anyway what +are you going to do about it? Did you seriously suppose that I--_I_--was +going through all the orange-blossom rigmarole, voice that breathed o'er +Eden, fully choral, red carpet on the pavement, flowers, photographers, +vicar, vestry, _Daily Picture_, reception, congratulations, rice, old +shoes, going-away dress, 'Be kind to her, Ozzie.' Not much! And I don't +think. They say that girls love it and insist on it. Well, I don't, and +I know some others who don't, too. I think it's simply barbaric, worse +than a public funeral. Why, to my mind it's Central African; and that's +all there is to it. So there!" She laughed. + +"Well," said Mr. Prohaek, holding his hat in his hand. "I'm a tolerably +two-faced person myself, but for sheer heartless duplicity I give you +the palm. You can beat me. Has it occurred to you that this dodge of +yours will cost you about fifty per cent of the wedding presents you +might otherwise have had?" + +"It has," said Sissie. "That was one reason why we tried the dodge. +Nothing is more horrible than about fifty per cent of the wedding +presents that brides get in these days. And we've had the two finest +presents anybody could wish for." + +"Oh?" + +"Yes, Ozzie gave me Ozzie, and I gave him me." + +"I suppose the idea was yours?" + +"Of course. Didn't I tell you yesterday that Ozzie's only function at my +wedding was to be indispensable. He was very much afraid at first when I +started on the scheme, but he soon warmed up to it. I'll give him credit +for seeing that secrecy was the only thing. If we'd announced it +beforehand, we should have been bound to be beaten. You see that +yourself, don't you, dearest? And after all, it's our affair and nobody +else's." + +"That's just where you're wrong," said Mr. Prohack grandly. "A marriage, +even yours, is an affair of the State's. It concerns society. It is full +of reactions on society. And society has been very wise to invest it +with solemnity--and a certain grotesque quality. All solemnities are a +bit grotesque, and so they ought to be. All solemnities ought to produce +self-consciousness in the performers. As things are, you'll be ten years +in convincing yourself that you're really a married woman, and till the +day of your death, and afterwards, society will have an instinctive +feeling that there's something fishy about you, or about Ozzie. And it's +your own fault." + +"Oh, dad! What a fraud you are!" And the girl smiled. "You know +perfectly well that if you'd been in my place, and had had the +pluck--which you wouldn't have had--you'd have done the same." + +"I should," Mr. Prohack immediately admitted. "Because I always want to +be smarter than other people. It's a cheap ambition. But I should have +been wrong. And I'm exceedingly angry with you and I'm suffering from a +sense of outrage, and I should not be at all surprised if all is over +between us. The thing amounts to a scandal, and the worst of it is that +no satisfactory explanation of it can ever be given to the world. If +your Ozzie is up, produce him, and I'll talk to him as he's never been +talked to before. He's the elder, he's a man, and he's the most to +blame." + +"Take your overcoat off," said Sissie laughing and kissing him again. +"And don't you dare to say a word to Ozzie. Besides, he isn't in. He's +gone off to business. He always goes at eleven-thirty punctually." + +There was a pause. + +"Well," said Mr. Prohack. "All I wish to state is that if you had a +feather handy, you could knock me down with it." + +"I can see all over your face," Sissie retorted, "that you're so pleased +and relieved you don't know what to do with yourself." + +Mr. Prohack perfunctorily denied this, but it was true. His relief that +the wedding lay behind instead of in front of him was immense, and his +spirits rose even higher than they had been when he first woke up. He +loathed all ceremonies, and the prospect of having to escort an +orange-blossom-laden young woman in an automobile to a fashionable +church, and up the aisle thereof, and raise his voice therein, and make +a present of her to some one else, and breathe sugary nothings to a +thousand gapers at a starchy reception,--this prospect had increasingly +become a nightmare to him. Often had he dwelt on it in a condition +resembling panic. And now he felt genuinely grateful to his inexcusable +daughter for her shameless effrontery. He desired greatly to do +something very handsome indeed for her and her excellent tame husband. + +"Step in and see my home," she said. + +The home consisted of two rooms, one of them a bedroom and the other a +sitting-room, together with a small bathroom that was as dark and dank +as a cell of the Spanish Inquisition, and another apartment which he +took for a cupboard, but which Sissie authoritatively informed him was a +kitchen. The two principal rooms were beyond question beautifully +Japanese in the matter of pictures, prints and cabinets--not otherwise. +They showed much taste; they were unusual and stimulating and jolly and +refined; but Mr. Prohack did not fancy that he personally could have +lived in them with any striking success. The lack of space, of light, +and of air outweighed all considerations of charm and originality; the +upper staircase alone would have ruined any flat for Mr. Prohack. + +"Isn't it lovely!" Sissie encouraged him. + +"Yes, it is," he said feebly. "Got any servants yet?" + +"Oh! We can't have servants. No room for them to sleep, and I couldn't +stand charwomen. You see, it's a service flat, so there's really nothing +to do." + +"So I noticed when I came in," said Mr. Prohack. "And I suppose you +intend to eat at restaurants. Or do they send up meals from the cellar?" + +"We shan't go to restaurants," Sissie replied. "You may be sure of that. +Too expensive for us. And I don't count much on the cookery downstairs. +No! I shall do the cooking in a chaffing-dish--here it is, you see. I've +been taking lessons in chafing-dish cookery every day for weeks, and +it's awfully amusing, it is really. And it's much better than ordinary +cooking, and cheaper too. Ozzie loves it." + +Mr. Prohack was touched, and more than ever determined to "be generous +in the grand manner and start the simple-minded couple in married life +on a scale befitting the general situation. + +"You'll soon be clearing out of this place, I expect," he began +cautiously. + +"Clearing out!" Sissie repeated. "Why should we? We've got all we need. +We haven't the slightest intention of trying to live as you live. +Ozzie's very prudent, I'm glad to say, and so am I. We're going to save +hard for a few years, and then we shall see how things are." + +"But you can't possibly stay on living in a place like this!" Mr. +Prohack protested, smiling diplomatically to soften the effect of his +words. + +"Who can't?" + +"You can't." + +"But when you say me, do you mean your daughter or Ozzie's wife? +Ozzie's lived here for years, and he's given lots of parties +here--tea-parties, of course." + +Mr. Prohack paused, perceiving that he had put himself in the wrong. + +"This place is perfectly respectable," Sissie continued, "and supposing +you hadn't got all that money from America or somewhere," she persisted, +"would you have said that I couldn't 'possibly go on living in a place +like this?'" She actually imitated his superior fatherly tone. "You'd +have been only too pleased to see me living in a place like this." + +Mr. Prohack raised both arms on high. + +"All right," said the young spouse, absurdly proud of her position. +"I'll let you off with your life this time, and you can drop your arms +again. But if anybody had told me that you would come here and make a +noise like a plutocrat I wouldn't have believed it. Still, I'm +frightfully fond of you and I know you'd do anything for me, and you're +nearly as much of a darling as Ozzie, but you mustn't be a rich man when +you call on me here. I couldn't bear it twice." + +"I retire in disorder, closely pursued by the victorious enemy," said +Mr. Prohack. And in so saying he accurately described the situation. He +had been more than defeated--he had been exquisitely snubbed. And yet +the singular creature was quite pleased. He looked at the young girl, no +longer his and no longer a girl either, set in the midst of a japanned +and lacquered room that so resembled Ozzie in its daintiness; he saw the +decision on her brow, the charm in her eyes, and the elegance in her +figure and dress, and he came near to bursting with pride. "She's got +character enough to beat even me," he reflected contentedly, thus +exhibiting an ingenuousness happily rare among fathers of brilliant +daughters. And even the glimpse of the cupboard kitchen, where the +washing-up after a chafing-dish breakfast for two had obviously not yet +been accomplished--even this touch seemed only to intensify the moral +and physical splendour of his child in her bridal setting. + +"At the same time," he added to the admission of defeat, "I seem to have +a sort of idea that lately you've been carrying on rather like a +plutocrat's daughter." + +"That was only my last fling," she replied, quite unperturbed. + +"I see," said Mr. Prohack musingly. "Now as regards my wedding present +to you. Am I permitted to offer any gift, or is it forbidden? Of course +with all my millions I couldn't hope to rival the gift which Ozzie gave +you, but I might come in a pretty fair second, mightn't I?" + +"Dad," said she. "I must leave all that to your good taste. I'm sure +that it won't let you make any attack on our independence." + +"Supposing that I were to find some capital for Ozzie to start in +business for himself as a theatrical manager? He must know a good deal +about the job by this time." + +Sissie shook her delicious head. + +"No, that would be plutocratic. And you see I've only just married +Ozzie. I don't know anything about him yet. When I do, I shall come and +talk to you. While you're waiting I wish you'd give me some crockery. +One breakfast cup isn't quite enough for two people, after the first +day. I saw a set of things in a shop in Oxford Street for L1. 19. 6 +which I should love to have.... What's happened to the mater? Is she in +a great state about me? Hadn't you better run off and put her out of her +misery?" + +He went, thoughtful. + + + + +III + + +He was considerably dashed on his return home, to find the door of his +study still locked on the outside. The gesture which on his leaving the +room seemed so natural, brilliant and excusable, now presented itself to +him as the act of a coarse-minded idiot. He hesitated to unlock the +door, but of course he had to unlock it. Eve sat as if at the stake, +sublime. + +"Arthur, why do you play these tricks on me--and especially when we are +in such trouble?" + +Why did he, indeed? + +"I merely didn't want you to run after me," said he. "I made sure of +course that you'd ring the bell at once and have the door opened." + +"Did you imagine for a moment that I would let any of the servants know +that you'd locked me in a room? No! You couldn't have imagined that. +I've too much respect for your reputation in this house to do such a +thing, and you ought to know it." + +"My child," said Mr. Prohack, once again amazed at Eve's extraordinary +gift for putting him in the wrong, and for making him still more wrong +when he was wrong. "This is the second time this morning that I've had +to surrender to overwhelming force. Name your own terms of peace. But +let me tell you in extenuation that I've discovered your offspring. The +fact is, I got her in one." + +"Where is she?" Eve asked, not eagerly, rather negligently, for she was +now more distressed about her husband's behaviour than about Sissie. + +"At Ozzie's." As soon as he had uttered the words Mr. Prohack saw his +wife's interest fly back from himself to their daughter. + +"What's she doing at Ozzie's?" + +"Well, she's living with him. They were married yesterday. They thought +they'd save you and me and themselves a lot of trouble.... But, look +here, my child, it's not a tragedy. What's the matter with you?" + +Eve's face was a mask of catastrophe. She did not cry. The affair went +too deep for tears. + +"I suppose I shall have to forgive Sissie--some day; but I've never been +so insulted in my life. Never! And never shall I forget it! And I've no +doubt that you and Sissie treated it all as a great piece of fun. You +would!" + +The poor lady had gone as pale as ivory. Mr. Prohack was astonished--he +even felt hurt--that he had not seen the thing from Eve's point of view +earlier. Emphatically it did amount to an insult for Eve, to say naught +of the immense desolating disappointment to her. And yet Sissie, +princess among daughters, had not shown by a single inflection of her +voice that she had any sympathy with her mother, or any genuine +appreciation of what the secret marriage would mean to her. Youth was +incredibly cruel; and age too, in the shape of Mr. Prohack himself, had +not been much less cruel. + +"Something's happened about that necklace since you left," said Eve, in +a dull, even voice. + +"Oh! What?" + +"I don't know. But I saw Mr. Crewd the detective drive up to the house +at a great pace. Then Brool came and knocked here, and as I didn't care +to have to tell him that the door was locked, I kept quiet and he went +away again. Mr. Crewd went away too. I saw him drive away." + +Mr. Prohack said nothing audible, but to himself he said: "She actually +choked off her curiosity about the necklace so as not to give me away! +There could never have been another woman like her in the whole history +of human self-control! She's prodigious!" + +And then he wondered what could have happened in regard to the necklace. +He foresaw more trouble there. And the splendour of the morning had +faded. An appalling silence descended upon the whole house. To escape +from its sinister spell Mr. Prohack departed and sought the seclusion of +his secondary club, which he had not entered for a very long time. (He +dared not face the lively amenities of his principal club.) He +pretended, at the secondary club, that he had never ceased to frequent +the place regularly, and to that end he put on a nonchalant air; but he +was somewhat disconcerted to find, from the demeanour of his +acquaintances there, that he positively had not been missed to any +appreciable extent. He decided that the club was a dreary haunt, and +could not understand why he had never before perceived its dreariness. +The members seemed to be scarcely alive; and in particular they seemed +to have conspired together to behave and talk as though humanity +consisted of only one sex,--their own. Mr. Prohack, worried though he +was by a too acute realisation of the fact that humanity did indeed +consist of two sexes, despised the lot of them. And yet simultaneously +the weaker part of him envied them, and he fully admitted, in the +abstract, that something might convincingly be said in favour of +monasteries. It was a most strange experience. + +After a desolating lunch of excellent dishes, perfect coffee which left +a taste in his mouth, and a fine cigar which he threw away before it was +half finished, he abandoned the club and strolled in the direction of +Manchester Square. But he lacked the courage to go into the noble +mansion, and feebly and aimlessly proceeded northward until he arrived +at Marylebone Road and saw the great historic crimson building of Madame +Tussaud's Waxworks. His mood was such that he actually, in a wild and +melancholy caprice, paid money to enter this building and enquired at +once for the room known as the Chamber of Horrors.... When he emerged +his gloom had reached the fantastic, hysteric, or giggling stage, and +his conception of the all-embracingness of London was immensely +enlarged. + +"Miss Sissie and Mr. Morfey are with Mrs. Prohack, sir," said Brool, in +a quite ordinary tone, taking the hat and coat of his returned master in +the hall of the noble mansion. + +Mr. Prohack started. + +"Give me back my hat and coat," said he. "Tell your mistress that I may +not be in for dinner." And he fled. + +He could not have assisted at the terrible interview between Eve and the +erring daughter who had inveigled her own betrothed into a premature +marriage. Sissie at any rate had pluck, and she must also have had an +enormous moral domination over Ozzie to have succeeded in forcing him +to join her in a tragic scene. What a honeymoon! To what a pass had +society come! Mr. Prohack drove straight to the Monument, and paid more +money for the privilege of climbing it. He next visited the Tower. The +day seemed to consist of twenty-four thousand hours. He dined at the +Trocadero Restaurant, solitary at a table under the shadow of the bass +fiddle of the orchestra; and finally he patronised Maskelyne and Cook's +entertainment, and witnessed the dissipation of solid young women into +air. He reached home, as it was humorously called, at ten thirty. + +"Mrs. Prohack has retired for the night, sir," said Brool, who never +permitted his employers merely to go to bed, "and wishes not to be +disturbed." + +"Thank God!" breathed Mr. Prohack. + +"Yes, sir," said Brool, dutifully acquiescent. + + + + +IV + + +The next morning Eve behaved to her husband exactly as if nothing +untoward had happened. She kissed and was kissed. She exhibited +sweetness without gaiety, and a general curiosity without interest. She +said not a word concerning the visit of Sissie and Ozzie. She expressed +the hope that Mr. Prohack had had a pleasant evening and slept well. Her +anxiety to be agreeable to Mr. Prohack was touching,--it was angelic. To +the physical eye all was as usual, but Mr. Prohack was aware that in a +single night she had built a high and unscalable wall between him and +her; a wall which he could see through and which he could kiss through, +but which debarred him utterly from her. And yet what sin had he +committed against her, save the peccadillo of locking her for an hour or +two in a comfortable room? It was Sissie, not he, who had committed the +sin. He wanted to point this out to Eve, but he appreciated the entire +futility of doing so and therefore refrained. About eleven o'clock Eve +knocked at and opened his study door. + +"May I come in--or am I disturbing you?" she asked brightly. + +"Don't be a silly goose," said Mr. Prohack, whose rising temper--he +hated angels--was drowning his tact. Smiling as though he had thrown her +a compliment, Eve came in, and shut the door. + +"I've just received this," she said. "It came by messenger." And she +handed him a letter signed with the name of Crewd, the private +detective. The letter ran: "Madam, I beg to inform you that I have just +ascertained that the driver of taxi No. 5437 has left at New Scotland +Yard a pearl necklace which he found in his vehicle. He states that he +drove a lady and gentleman from your house to Waterloo Station on the +evening of your reception, but can give no description of them. I +mention the matter _pro forma_, but do not anticipate that it can +interest you as the police authorities at New Scotland Yard declare the +pearls to be false. Yours obediently.... P.S. I called upon you in order +to communicate the above facts yesterday, but you were not at home." + +Mr. Prohack turned a little pale, and his voice trembled as he said, +looking up from the letter: + +"I wonder who the thief was. Anyhow, women are staggering. Here some +woman--I'm sure it was the woman and not the man--picks up a necklace +from the floor of one of your drawing-rooms, well knowing it not to be +her own, hides it, makes off with it, and then is careless enough to +leave it in a taxi! Did you ever hear of such a thing?" + +"But that wasn't my necklace, Arthur!" said Eve. + +"Of course it was your necklace," said Mr. Prohack. + +"Do you mean to tell me--" Eve began, and it was a new Eve. + +"Of course I do!" said Mr. Prohack, who had now thoroughly subdued his +temper in the determination to bring to a head that trouble about the +necklace and end it for ever. He was continuing his remarks when the +wall suddenly fell down with an unimaginable crash. Eve said nothing, +but the soundless crash deafened Mr. Prohack. Nevertheless the mere fact +that Sissie's wedding lay behind and not before him, helped him somewhat +to keep his spirits and his nerve. + +"I will never forgive you, Arthur!" said Eve with the most solemn and +terrible candour. She no longer played a part; she was her formidable +self, utterly unmasked and savagely expressive without any regard to +consequences. Mr. Prohack saw that he was engaged in a mortal duel, with +the buttons off the deadly foils. + +"Of course you won't," said he, gathering himself heroically together, +and superbly assuming a calm which he did not in the least feel. "Of +course you won't, because there is nothing to forgive. On the contrary, +you owe me your thanks. I never deceived you. I never told you the +pearls were genuine. Indeed I beg to remind you that I once told you +positively that I would never buy you a _pearl_ necklace,--don't you +remember? You thought they were genuine, and you have had just as much +pleasure out of them as if they had been genuine. You were always +careless with your jewellery. Think how I should have suffered if I had +watched you every day being careless with a rope of genuine pearls! I +should have had no peace of mind. I should have been obliged to reproach +you, and as you can't bear to be reproached you would have picked +quarrels with me. Further, you have lost nothing in prestige, for the +reason that all our friends and acquaintances have naturally assumed +that the pearls were genuine because they were your pearls and you were +the wife of a rich man. A woman whose husband's financial position is +not high and secure is bound to wear real pearls because people will +_assume_ that her pearls are false. But a woman like yourself can wear +any pinchbeak pearls with impunity because people _assume_ that her +pearls are genuine. In your case there could be no advantage whatever in +genuine pearls. To buy them would be equivalent to throwing money in the +street. Now, as it is, I have saved money over the pearls, and therefore +interest on money, though I did buy you the very finest procurable +imitations! And think, my child, how relieved you are now,--oh, yes! you +are, so don't pretend the contrary: I can deceive you, but you can't +deceive me. You have no grievance whatever. You have had many hours of +innocent satisfaction in your false jewels, and nobody is any the worse. +Indeed my surpassing wisdom in the choice of a necklace has saved you +from all further worry about the loss of the necklace, because it simply +doesn't matter either one way or the other, and I say I defy you to +stand there and tell me to my face that you have any grievance at all." + +Mr. Prohack paused for a reply, and he got it. + +"I will never forgive you as long as I live," said Eve. "Let us say no +more about it. What time is that awful lunch that you've arranged with +that dreadful Bishop man? And what would you like me to wear, please?" +In an instant she had rebuilt the wall, higher than ever. + +Mr. Prohack, always through the wall, took her in his arms and kissed +her. But he might as well have kissed a woman in a trance. All that +could be said was that Eve submitted to his embrace, and her attitude +was another brilliant illustration of the fact that the most powerful +oriental tyrants can be defied by their weakest slaves, provided that +the weakest slaves know how to do it. + +"You are splendid!" said Mr. Prohack, admiringly, conscious anew of his +passion for her and full of trust in the virtue of his passion to knock +down the wall sooner or later. "But you are a very naughty and +ungrateful creature, and you must be punished. I will now proceed to +punish you. We have much to do before the lunch. Go and get ready, and +simply put on all the clothes that have cost the most money. They are +the clothes fittest for your punishment." + +Three-quarters of an hour later, when Mr. Prohack had telephoned and +sent a confirmatory note by hand to his bank, Carthew drove them away +southwards, and the car stopped in front of the establishment of a very +celebrated firm of jewellers near Piccadilly. + +"Come along," said Mr. Prohack, descending to the pavement, and drew +after him a moving marble statue, richly attired. They entered the +glittering shop, and were immediately encountered by an expectant +salesman who had the gifts of wearing a frock-coat as though he had been +born in it, and of reading the hearts of men. That salesman saw in a +flash that big business was afoot. + +"First of all," said Mr. Prohack. "Here is my card, so that we may know +where we stand." + +The salesman read the card and was suitably impressed, but his +conviction that big business was afoot seemed now to be a little shaken. + +"May I venture to hope that the missing necklace has been found, sir?" +said the salesman smoothly. "We've all been greatly interested in the +newspaper story." + +"That is beside the point," said Mr. Prohack. "I've come simply to buy a +pearl necklace." + +"I beg pardon, sir. Certainly. Will you have the goodness to step this +way." + +They were next in a private room off the shop; and the sole items of +furniture were three elegant chairs, a table with a glass top, and a +colossal safe. Another salesman entered the room with bows, and keys +were produced, and the two salesmen between them swung back the majestic +dark green doors of the safe. In another minute various pearl necklaces +were lying on the table. The spectacle would have dazzled a connoisseur +in pearls; but Mr. Prohack was not a connoisseur; he was not even +interested in pearls, and saw on the table naught but a monotonous array +of pleasing gewgaws, to his eye differing one from another only in size. +He was, however, actuated by a high moral purpose, which uplifted him +and enabled him to listen with dignity to the technical eulogies given +by the experts. Eve of course behaved with impeccable correctness, +hiding the existence of the wall from everybody except Mr. Prohack, but +forcing Mr. Prohack to behold the wall all the time. + +When he had reached a state of complete bewilderment regarding the +respective merits of the necklaces, Mr. Prohack judged the moment ripe +for proceeding to business. With his own hands he clasped a necklace +round his wife's neck, and demanded: + +"What is the price of this one?" + +"Eight hundred and fifty pounds," answered the principal expert, who +seemed to recognise every necklace at sight as a shepherd recognises +every sheep in his flock. + +"Do you think this would suit you, my dear?" asked Mr. Prohack. + +"I think so," replied Eve politely. + +"Well, I'm not so sure," said Mr. Prohack, reflectively. "What about +this one?" And he picked up and tried upon Eve another and a larger +necklace. + +"That," said the original expert, "is two thousand four hundred +guineas." + +"It seems cheap," said Mr. Prohack carelessly. "But there's something +about the gradation that I don't quite like. What about this one?" + +Eve opened her mouth, as if about to speak, but she did not speak. The +wall, which had trembled for a few seconds, regained its monumental +solidity. + +"Five thousand guineas," said the expert of the third necklace. + +"Hm!" commented Mr. Prohack, removing the gewgaw. "Yes. Not so bad. And +yet--" + +"That necklace," the expert announced with a mien from which all +deference had vanished, "is one of the most perfect we have. The pearls +have, if I may so express it, a homogeneity not often arrived at in any +necklace. They are not very large of course--" + +"Quite so," Mr. Prohack stopped him, selecting a fourth necklace. + +"Yes," the expert admitted, his deference returning. "That one is +undoubtedly superior. Let me see, we have not yet exactly valued it, but +I think we could put it in at ten thousand guineas--perhaps pounds. I +should have to consult one of the partners." + +"It is scarcely," said Mr. Prohack, surveying the trinket judicially on +his wife's neck, "scarcely the necklace of my dreams,--not that I would +say a word against it.... Ah!" And he pounced suddenly, with an air of +delighted surprise, upon a fifth necklace, the queen of necklaces. + +"My dear, try this one. Try this one. I didn't notice it before. Somehow +it takes my fancy, and as I shall obviously see much more of your +necklace than you will, I should like my taste to be consulted." + +As he fastened the catch of the thing upon Eve's delicious nape, he +could feel that she was trembling. He surveyed the dazzling string. She +also surveyed it, fascinated, spellbound. Even Mr. Prohack began to +perceive that the reputation and value of fine pearls might perhaps be +not entirely unmerited in the world. + +"Sixteen thousand five hundred," said the expert. + +"Pounds or guineas?" Mr. Prohack blandly enquired. + +"Well, sir, shall we say pounds?" + +"I think I will take it," said Mr. Prohack with undiminished blandness. +"No, my dear, don't take it off. Don't take it off." + +"Arthur!" Eve breathed, seeming to expire in a kind of agonised protest. + +"May I have a few minutes' private conversation with my wife?" Mr. +Prohack suggested. "Could you leave us?" One expert glanced at the other +awkwardly. + +"Pardon my lack of savoir vivre," said Mr. Prohack. "Of course you +cannot possibly leave us alone with all these valuables. Never mind! We +will call again." + +The principal expert rose sublimely to the great height of the occasion. +He had a courageous mind and was moreover well acquainted with the +fantastic folly of allowing customers to call again. Within his +experience of some thirty years he had not met half a dozen exceptions +to the rule that customers who called again, if ever they did call, +called in a mood of hard and miserly sanity which for the purposes of +the jewellery business was sickeningly inferior to their original mood. + +"Please, please, Mr. Prohack!" said he, with grand deprecation, and +departed out of the room with his fellow. + +No sooner had they gone than the wall sank. It did not tumble with a +crash; it most gently subsided. + +"Arthur!" Eve exclaimed, with a curious uncertainty of voice. "Are you +mad?" + +"Yes," said Mr. Prohack. + +"Well," said she. "If you think I shall walk about London with sixteen +thousand five hundred pounds round my neck you're mistaken." + +"But I insist! You were a martyr and our marriage was ruined because I +didn't give you real pearls. I intend you shall have real pearls." + +"But not these," said Eve. "It's too much. It's a fortune." + +"I am aware of that," Mr. Prohack agreed. "But what is sixteen thousand +five hundred pounds to me?" + +"Truly I couldn't, darling," Eve wheedled. + +"I am not your darling," said Mr. Prohack. "How can I be your darling +when you're never going to forgive me? Look here. I'll let you choose +another necklace, but only on the condition that you forgive all my +alleged transgressions, past, present and to come." + +She kissed him. + +"You can have the one at five thousand guineas," said Mr. Prohack. +"Nothing less. That is my ultimatum. Put it on. Put it on, quick! Or I +may change my mind." + +He recalled the experts who, when they heard the grave news, smiled +bravely, and looked upon Eve as upon a woman whose like they might never +see again. + +"My wife will wear the necklace at once," said Mr. Prohack. "Pen and +ink, please." He wrote a cheque. "My car is outside. Perhaps you will +send some one up to my bank immediately and cash this. We will wait. I +have warned the bank. There will be no delay. The case can be delivered +at my house. You can make out the receipt and usual guarantee while +we're waiting." And so it occurred as he had ordained. + +"Would you care for us to arrange for the insurance? We undertake to do +it as cheaply as anybody," the expert suggested, later. + +Mr. Prohack was startled, for in his inexperience he had not thought of +such complications. + +"I was just going to suggest it," he answered placidly. + +"I feel quite queer," said Eve, as she fingered the necklace, in the +car, when all formalities were accomplished and they had left the cave +of Aladdin. + +"And well you may, my child," said Mr. Prohack. "The interest on the +price of that necklace would about pay the salary of a member of +Parliament or even of a professional cricketer. And remember that +whenever you wear the thing you are in danger of being waylaid, brutally +attacked, and robbed." + +"I wish you wouldn't be silly," Eve murmured. "I do hope I shan't seem +self-conscious at the lunch." + +"We haven't reached the lunch yet," Mr. Prohack replied. "We must go and +buy a safe first. There's no safe worth twopence in the house, and a +really safe safe is essential. And I want it to be clearly understood +that I shall keep the key of that safe. We aren't playing at necklaces +now. Life is earnest." + +And when they had bought a safe and were once more in the car, he said, +examining her impartially: "After all, at a distance of four feet it +doesn't look nearly so grand as the one that's lying at Scotland Yard--I +gave thirty pounds for that one." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +MR. PROHACK'S TRIUMPH + + +"And where is your charming daughter?" asked Mr. Softly Bishop so gently +of Eve, when he had greeted her, and quite incidentally Mr. Prohack, in +the entrance hall of the Grand Babylon Hotel. He was alone--no sign of +Miss Fancy. + +"Sissie?" said Eve calmly. "I haven't the slightest idea." + +"But I included her in my invitations--and Mr. Morfey too." + +Mr. Prohack was taken aback, foreseeing the most troublesome +complications; and he glanced at Eve as if for guidance and support. He +was nearly ready to wish that after all Sissie had not gone and got +married secretly and prematurely. Eve, however, seemed quite +undisturbed, though she offered him neither guidance nor support. + +"Surely," said Mr. Prohack hesitatingly, "surely you didn't mention +Sissie in your letter to me!" + +"Naturally I didn't, my dear fellow," answered Mr. Bishop. "I wrote to +her separately, knowing the position taken up by the modern young lady. +And she telephoned me yesterday afternoon that she and Morfey would be +delighted to come." + +"Then if you know so much about the modern young lady," said Eve, with +bright and perfect self-possession, "you wouldn't expect my daughter to +arrive with her parents, would you?" + +Mr. Softly Bishop laughed. + +"You're only putting off the evil moment," said Mr. Prohack in the +silence of his mind to Eve, and similarly he said to Mr. Softly Bishop: + +"I do wish you wouldn't call me 'my dear fellow.' True, I come to your +lunch, but I'm not your dear fellow and I never will be." + +"I invited your son also, Prohack," continued Mr. Bishop. "Together with +Miss Winstock or Warburton--she appears to have two names--to make a +pair, to make a pair you understand. But unfortunately he's been +suddenly called out of town on the most urgent business." As he uttered +these last words Mr. Bishop glanced in a peculiar manner partly at his +nose and partly at Mr. Prohack; it was a singular feat of glancing, and +Mr. Prohack uncomfortably wondered what it meant, for Charles lay +continually on Mr. Prohack's chest, and at the slightest provocation +Charles would lie more heavily than usual. + +"Am I right in assuming that the necklace affair is satisfactorily +settled?" Mr. Softly Bishop enquired, his spectacles gleaming and +blinking at the adornment of Eve's neck. + +"You are," said Eve. "But it wouldn't be advisable for you to be too +curious about details." + +Her aplomb, her sangfroid, astounded Mr. Prohack--and relieved him. With +an admirable ease she went on to congratulate their host upon his +engagement, covering him with petals of flattery and good wishes. Mr. +Prohack could scarcely recognise his wife, and he was not sure that he +liked her new worldiness quite as much as her old ingenuous and +sometimes inarticulate simplicity. At any rate she was a changed woman. +He steadied himself, however, by a pertinent reflection: she was always +a changed woman. + +Then Sissie and Ozzie appeared, looking as though they had been married +for years. Mr. Prohack's heart began to beat. Ignoring Mr. Softly +Bishop, Sissie embraced her mother with prim affectionateness, and Eve +surveyed her daughter with affectionate solicitude. Mr. Prohack felt +that he would never know what had passed between these two on the +previous day, for they were a pair of sphinxes when they chose, and he +was too proud to encourage confidences from Ozzie. Whatever it might +have been it was now evidently buried deep, and the common life, after a +terrible pause, had resumed. + +"How do you do, Miss Prohack," said Mr. Softly Bishop, greeting. "So +glad you could come." + +Mr. Prohack suspected that his cheeks were turning pale, and was ashamed +of himself. Even Sissie, for all her young, hard confidence, wavered. + +But Eve stepped in. + +"Don't you know, Mr. Bishop?--No, of course you don't. We ought to have +told you. My daughter is now Mrs. Morfey. You see in our family we all +have such a horror of the conventional wedding and reception and formal +honeymoon and so on, that we decided the marriage should be strictly +private, with no announcements of any kind. I really think you are the +first to know. One thing I've always liked about actresses is that in +the afternoon you can read of them getting married that day and then go +and see them play the same evening. It seems to me so sensible. And as +we were all of the same opinion at our house, especially Sissie and her +father, there was no difficulty." + +"Upon my word," said Mr. Softly Bishop shaking hands with Ozzie. "I +believe I shall follow your example." + +Mr. Prohack sank into a chair. + +"I feel rather faint," he said. "Bishop, do you think we might have a +cocktail or so?" + +"My dear fellow, how thoughtless of me! Of course! Waiter! Waiter!" As +Mr. Bishop swung round in the direction of waiters Eve turned in alarm +to Mr. Prohack. Mr. Prohack with much deliberation winked at her, and +she drew back. "Yes," he murmured. "You'll be the death of me one day, +and then you'll be sorry." + +"I don't think a cocktail is at all a good thing for you, dad," Sissie +calmly observed. + +The arrival of Miss Fancy provided a distraction more agreeable than Mr. +Prohack thought possible; he positively welcomed the slim, angular +blonde, for she put an end to a situation which, prolonged another +moment, would have resulted in a severe general constraint. + +"You're late, my dear," said Mr. Softly Bishop, firmly. + +The girl's steely blue-eyed glance shot out at the greeting, but seemed +to drop off flatly from Mr. Bishop's adamantine spectacles like a bullet +from Bessemer armour. + +"Am I?" she replied uncertainly, in her semi-American accent. "Where's +the ladies' cloakroom of this place?" + +"I'll show you," said Mr. Bishop, with no compromise. + +The encounter was of the smallest, but it made Mr. Prohack suspect that +perhaps Mr. Bishop was not after all going into the great warfare of +matrimony blindly or without munitions. + +"I've taken the opportunity to tell Miss Fancy that she will be the only +unmarried woman at my lunch," said Mr. Bishop amusingly, when he +returned from piloting his beloved. A neat fellow, beyond question! + +Miss Fancy had apparently to re-dress herself, judging from the length +of her absence. The cocktails, however, beguiled the suspense. + +"Is this for me?" she asked, picking up a full glass when she came back. + +"No, my dear," said Mr. Bishop. "It isn't. We will go in to lunch." And +they went in to lunch, leaving unconsumed the cocktail which the +abstemious and spartan Sissie had declined to drink. + + + + +II + + +"I suppose you've been to see the Twelve and Thirteen," said Eve, in her +new grand, gracious manner to Miss Fancy, when the party was seated at a +round, richly-flowered table specially reserved by Mr. Softly Bishop on +the Embankment front of the restaurant, and the hors d'oeuvre had begun +to circulate on the white cloth, which was as crowded as the gold room. + +"I'm afraid I haven't," muttered Miss Fancy weakly but with due +refinement. The expression of fear was the right expression. Eve had put +the generally brazen woman in a fright at the first effort. And the +worst was that Miss Fancy did not even know what the Twelve and Thirteen +was--or were. At the opening of her debut at what she imagined to be the +great, yet exclusive, fashionable world, Miss Fancy was failing. Of what +use to be perfectly dressed and jewelled, to speak with a sometimes +carefully-corrected accent, to sit at the best table in the London +restaurant most famous in the United States, to be affianced to the +cleverest fellow she had ever struck, if the wonderful and famous +hostess, Mrs. Prohack, whose desirable presence was due only to Softly's +powerful influence in high circles, could floor her at the very outset +of the conversation? It is a fact that Miss Fancy would have given the +emerald ring off her left first-finger to be able to answer back. All +Miss Fancy could do was to smite Mr. Softly Bishop with a homicidal +glance for that he had not in advance put her wise about something +called the Twelve and Thirteen. It is also a fact that Miss Fancy would +have perished sooner than say to Mrs. Prohack the simple words: "I +haven't the slightest idea what the Twelve and Thirteen are." Eve did +not disguise her impression that Miss Fancy's lapse was very strange and +disturbing. + +"I suppose you've seen the new version of the 'Sacre du Printemps,' +Miss Fancy," said Mrs. Oswald Morfey, that exceedingly modern and +self-possessed young married lady. + +"Not yet," said Miss Fancy, and foolishly added: "We were thinking of +going to-night." + +"There won't be any more performances this season," said Ozzie, that +prince of authorities on the universe of entertainment. + +And in this way the affair continued between the four, while Mr. Softly +Bishop, abandoning his beloved to her fate, chatted murmuringly with Mr. +Prohack about the Oil Market, as to which of course Mr. Prohack was the +prince of authorities. Mrs. Prohack and her daughter and son-in-law +ranged at ease over all the arts without exception, save the one +art--that of musical comedy--in which Miss Fancy was versed. Mr. Prohack +was amazed at the skilled cruelty of his women. He wanted to say to Miss +Fancy: "Don't you believe it! My wife is only a rather nice ordinary +housekeeping sort of little woman, and as for my daughter, she cooks her +husband's meals--and jolly badly, I bet." He ought to have been pleased +at the discomfiture of Miss Fancy, whom he detested and despised; but he +was not; he yearned to succour her; he even began to like her. + +And not Eve and Sissie alone amazed him. Oswald amazed him. Oswald had +changed. His black silk stock had gone the way of his ribboned +eye-glass; his hair was arranged differently; he closely resembled an +average plain man,--he, the unique Ozzie! With all his faults, he had +previously been both good-natured and negligent, but his expression was +now one of sternness and of resolute endeavour. Sissie had already +metamorphosed him. Even now he was obediently following her lead and her +mood. Mr. Prohack's women had evidently determined to revenge themselves +for being asked to meet Miss Fancy at lunch, and Ozzie had been set on +to assist them. Further, Mr. Prohack noticed that Sissie was eyeing her +mother's necklace with a reprehending stare. The next instant he found +himself the target of the same stare. The girl was accusing him of +folly, while questioning Ozzie's definition of the difference between +Georgian and neo-Georgian verse. The girl had apparently become the +censor of society at large. + +Mysterious cross-currents ran over the table in all directions. Mr. +Prohack looked around the noisy restaurant packed with tables, and +wondered whether cross-currents were running invisibly over all the +tables, and what was the secret force of fashionable fleeting convention +which enabled women with brains far inferior to his own to use it +effectively for the fighting of sanguinary battles. + +At last, when Miss Fancy had been beaten into silence and the other +three were carrying on a brilliant high-browed conversation over the +corpse of her up-to-dateness, Mr. Prohack's nerves reached the point at +which he could tolerate the tragic spectacle no more, and he burst out +vulgarly, in a man-in-the-street vein, chopping off the brilliant +conversation as with a chopper: + +"Now, Miss Fancy, tell us something about yourself." + +The common-sounding phrase seemed to be a magic formula endowed with the +power to break an awful spell. Miss Fancy gathered herself together, +forgot that she had been defeated, and inaugurated a new battle. She +began to tell the table not something, but almost everything, about +herself, and it soon became apparent that she was no ordinary woman. +She had never had a set-back; in innumerable conversational duels she +had always given the neat and deadly retort, and she had never been +worsted, save by base combinations deliberately engineered against +her--generally by women, whom as a sex she despised even more than men. +Her sincere belief that no biographical detail concerning Miss Fancy was +too small to be uninteresting to the public amounted to a religious +creed; and her memory for details was miraculous. She recalled the exact +total of the takings at any given performance in which she was prominent +in any city of the United States, and she could also give long extracts +from the favourable criticisms of countless important American +newspapers,--by a singular coincidence only unimportant newspapers had +ever mingled blame with their praise of her achievements. She regarded +herself with detachment as a remarkable phenomenon, and therefore she +could impersonally describe her career without any of the ordinary +restraints--just as a shopman might clothe or unclothe a model in his +window. Thus she could display her heart and its history quite +unreservedly,--did they not belong to the public? + +The astounded table learnt that Miss Fancy was illustrious in the press +of the United States as having been engaged to be married more often +than any other actress. Yet she had never got as far as the altar, +though once she had reached the church-door--only to be swept away from +it by a cyclone which unhappily finished off the bridegroom. (What grey +and tedious existences Eve and Sissie had led!) Her penultimate +engagement had been to the late Silas Angmering. + +"Something told me I should never be his wife," she said vivaciously. +"You know the feeling we women have. And I wasn't much surprised to hear +of his death. I'd refused Silas eight times; then in the end I promised +to marry him by a certain date. He _wouldn't_ take No, poor dear! Well, +_he_ was a gentleman anyway. Of course it was no more than right that he +should put me down in his will, but not every man would have done. In +fact it never happened to me before. Wasn't it strange I should have +that feeling about never being his wife?" + +She glanced eagerly at Mr. Prohack and Mr. Prohack's women, and there +was a pause, in which Mr. Softly Bishop said, affectionately regarding +his nose: + +"Well, my dear, you'll be _my_ wife, you'll find," and he uttered this +observation in a sharp tone of conviction that made a quite disturbing +impression on the whole company, and not least on Mr. Prohack, who kept +asking himself more and more insistently: + +"Why is Softly Bishop marrying Miss Fancy, and why is Miss Fancy +marrying Softly Bishop?" + +Mr. Prohack was interrupted in his private enquiry into this enigma by a +very unconventional nudge from Sissie, who silently directed his +attention to Eve, who seemingly wanted it. + +"Your friend seems anxious to speak to you," murmured Eve, in a low, +rather roguish voice. + +'His friend' was Lady Massulam, who was just concluding a solitary lunch +at a near table; he had not noticed her, being still sadly remiss in the +business of existing fully in a fashionable restaurant. Lady Massulam's +eyes confirmed Eve's statement. + +"I'm sure Miss Fancy will excuse you for a moment," said Eve. + +"Oh! Please!" implored Miss Fancy, grandly. + +Mr. Prohack self-consciously carried his lankness and his big head +across to Lady Massulam's table. She looked up at him with a composed +but romantic smile. That is to say that Mr. Prohack deemed it romantic; +and he leaned over the table and over Lady Massulam in a manner romantic +to match. + +"I'm just going off," said she. + +Simple words, from a portly and mature lady--yet for Mr. Prohack they +were charged with all sorts of delicious secondary significances. + +"What _is_ the difference between her and Eve?" he asked himself, and +then replied to the question in a flash of inspiration: "I am romantic +to her, and I am not romantic to Eve." He liked this ingenious +explanation. + +"I wanted to tell you," said she gravely, with beautiful melancholy, +"Charles is _flambe_. He is done in. I cannot help him. He will not let +me; but if I see him to-night when he returns to town I shall send him +to you. He is very young, very difficult, but I shall insist that he +goes to you." + +"How kind you are!" said Mr. Prohack, touched. + +Lady Massulam rose, shook hands, seemed to blush, and departed. An +interview as brief as it had been strange! Mr. Prohack was thrilled, not +at all by the announcement of Charlie's danger, perhaps humiliation, but +by the attitude of Lady Massulam. He had his plans for Charlie. He had +no plans affecting Lady Massulam. + +Mr. Softly Bishop's luncheon had developed during the short absence of +Mr. Prohack. It's splendour, great from the first, had increased; if +tables ever do groan, which is perhaps doubtful, the table was certainly +groaning; Mr. Softly Bishop was just dismissing, with bland and +negligent approval, the major domo of the restaurant, with whom, like +all truly important personages, he appeared to be on intimate terms. But +the chief development of the luncheon disclosed itself in the +conversation. Mr. Softly Bishop had now taken charge of the talk and was +expatiating to a hushed and crushed audience his plans for a starring +world-tour for his future wife, who listened to them with genuine +admiration on her violet-tinted face. + +"Eliza won't be in it with me when I come back," she exclaimed suddenly, +with deep conviction, with anticipatory bliss, with a kind of rancorous +ferocity. + +Mr. Prohack understood. Miss Fancy was uncompromisingly jealous of her +half-sister's renown. To outdo that renown was the main object of her +life, and Mr. Softly Bishop's claim on her lay in the fact that he had +shown her how to accomplish her end and was taking charge of the +arrangements. Mr. Softly Bishop was her trainer and her manager; he had +dazzled her by the variety and ingenuity of his resourceful schemes; and +his power over her was based on a continual implied menace that if she +did not strictly obey all his behests she would fail to realise her +supreme desire. + +And when Mr. Softly Bishop gradually drew Ozzie into a technical +tete-a-tete, Mr. Prohack understood further why Ozzie had been invited +to the feast. Upon certain branches of Mr. Bishop's theatrical schemes +Ozzie was an acknowledged expert, and Mr. Bishop was obtaining, for the +price of a luncheon, the fruity knowledge and wisdom acquired by Ozzie +during long years of close attention to business. + +For Mr. Prohack it was an enthralling scene. The luncheon closed +gorgeously upon the finest cigars and cigarettes, the finest coffee, and +the finest liqueurs that the unique establishment could provide. Sissie +refused every allurement except coffee, and Miss Fancy was permitted +nothing but coffee. + +"Do not forget your throat, my dear," Mr. Softly Bishop authoritatively +interjected into Miss Fancy's circumstantial recital of the +expensiveness of the bouquets which had been hurled at her in the New +National Theatre at Washington. + +"And by the way," (looking at his watch), "do not forget the appointment +with the elocutionist." + +"But aren't you coming with me?" demanded Miss Fancy alarmed. Already +she was learning the habit of helplessness--so attractive to men and so +useful to them. + +These remarks broke up the luncheon party, which all the guests assured +the deprecating host had been perfectly delightful, with the implied +addition that it had also constituted the crown and summit of their +careers. Eve and Sissie were prodigious in superlatives to such an +extent that Mr. Prohack began to fear for Mr. Softly Bishop's capacity +to assimilate the cruder forms of flattery. His fear, however, was +unnecessary. When the host and his beloved departed Miss Fancy was still +recounting tit-bits of her biography. + +"But I'll tell you the rest another time," she cried from the moving +car. + +She had emphatically won the second battle. From the first blow she had +never even looked like losing. And she had shown no mercy, quite +properly following the maxim that war is war. Eve and Sissie seemed to +rise with difficulty to their knees, after the ruthless adversary, tired +of standing on their prostrate form, had scornfully walked away. + + + +III + + +"Well!" sighed Mrs. Prohack, with the maximum of expressiveness, +glancing at her daughter as one woman of the world at another. They were +lingering, as it were convalescent after the severe attack and defeat, +in the foyer of the hotel. + +"Well!" sighed Sissie, flattered by the glance, and firmly taking her +place in the fabric of society. "Well, father, we always knew you had +some queer friends, but really these were the limit! And the +extravagance of the thing! That luncheon must have cost at least twenty +pounds,--and I do believe he had special flowers, too. When I think of +the waste of money and time that goes on daily in places like these, I +wonder there's any England left. It ought to be stopped by law." + +"My child," said Mr. Prohack. "I observe with approbation that you are +beginning to sit up and take notice. Centuries already divide you from +the innocent creature who used to devote her days and nights to the +teaching of dancing to persons who had no conception of the seriousness +of life. I agree with your general criticism, but let us remember that +all this wickedness does not date from the day before yesterday. It's +been flourishing for some thousands of years, and all prophecies about +it being over-taken by Nemesis have proved false. Still, I'm glad you've +turned over a new leaf." + +Sissie discreetly but unmistakably tossed her young head. + +"Oswald, dearest," said she. "It's time you were off." + +"It is," Ozzie agreed, and off he went, to resume the serious struggle +for existence,--he who until quite recently had followed the great +theatrical convention that though space may be a reality, time is not. + +"I don't mind the extravagance, because after all it's good for trade," +said Eve. "What I--" + +"Mother darling!" Sissie protested. "Where do you get these +extraordinary ideas from about luxury being good for trade? Surely you +ought to know--" + +"I daresay I ought to know all sorts of things I don't know," said Eve +with dignity. "But there's one thing I do know, and that is that the +style of those two dreadful people was absolutely the worst I've ever +met. The way that woman gabbled--and all about herself; and what an +accent, and the way she held her fork!" + +"Lady," said Mr. Prohack. "Don't be angry because she beat you." + +"Beat me!" + +"Yes. Beat you. Both of you. You talked her to a standstill at first; +but you couldn't keep it up. Then she began and she talked you to a +standstill, and she could keep it up. She left you for all practical +purposes dead on the field, my tigresses. And I'm very sorry for her," +he added. + +"Dad," said Sissie sternly. "Why do you always try to be so clever with +us? You know as well as we do that she's a _creature_, and that there's +nothing to be said for her at all." + +"Nothing to be said for her!" Mr. Prohack smiled tolerantly. "Why she +was the star of the universe for Silas Angmering, the founder of our +fortunes. She was the finest woman he'd ever met. And Angmering was a +clever fellow, let me tell you. You call her a creature. Yes, the +creature of destiny, like all of us, except of course you. I beg to +inform you that Miss Fancy went out of this hotel a victim, an +unconscious victim, but a victim. She is going to be exploited. Mr. +Softly Bishop, my co-heir, will run her for all she is worth. He will +make a lot of money out of her. He will make her work as she has never +worked before. He will put a value on all her talents, for his own ends. +And he will deprive her of most of her accustomed pleasures. In fifteen +years there'll be nothing left of Miss Fancy except an exhausted wreck +with a spurious reputation, but Mr. Softly Bishop will still be in his +prime and in the full enjoyment of life, and he will spend on himself +the riches that she has made for him and allow her about sixpence a +week; and the most tragic and terrible thing of all is that she will +think she owes everything to him! No! If I was capable of weeping, I +should have wept at the pathos of the spectacle of Miss Fancy as she +left us just now unconscious of her fate and revelling in the most +absurd illusions. That poor defenceless woman, who has had the +misfortune not to please you, is heading straight for a life-long +martyrdom." Mr. Prohack ceased impressively. + +"And serve her right!" said Eve. "I've met cats in my time, but--" And +Eve also ceased. + +"And I am not sure," added Mr. Prohack, still impressively. "And I am +not sure that the ingenuous and excellent Oswald Morfey is not heading +straight in the same direction." And he gazed at his adored daughter, +who exhibited a faint flush, and then laughed lightly. "Yes," said Mr. +Prohack, "you are very smart, my girl. If you had shown violence you +would have made a sad mistake. That you should laugh with such a +brilliant imitation of naturalness gives me hopes of you. Let us seek +Carthew and the car. Mr. Bishop's luncheon, though I admit it was +exceedingly painful, has, I trust, not been without its useful lessons +to us, and I do not regret it. For myself I admit it has taught me that +even the finest and most agreeable women, such as those with whom I have +been careful to sourround myself in my domestic existence, are monsters +of cruelty. Not that I care." + +"I've arranged with mamma that you shall come to dinner to-night," said +Sissie. "No formality, please." + +"Mayn't your mother wear her pearls?" asked Mr. Prohack. + +"I hope you noticed, Arthur," said Eve with triumphant satisfaction, +"how your Miss Fancy was careful to keep off the subject of jewels." + +"Mother's pearls," said Sissie primly, "are mother's affair." + +Mr. Prohack did not feel at all happy. + +"And yet," he asked himself. "What have I done? I am perfectly +innocent." + + + +IV + + +"I never in all my life," said Sissie, "saw you eat so much, dad. And I +think it's a great compliment to my cooking. In fact I'm bursting with +modest pride." + +"Well," replied Mr. Prohack, who had undoubtedly eaten rather too much, +"take it how you like. I do believe I could do with a bit more of this +stuff that imitates an omelette but obviously isn't one." + +"Oh! But there isn't any more!" said Sissie, somewhat dashed. + +"No more! Good heavens! Then have you got some cheese, or anything of +that sort?" + +"No. I don't keep cheese in the place. You see, the smell of it in these +little flats--" + +"Any bread? Anything at all?" + +"I'm afraid we've finished up pretty nearly all there was, except +Ozzie's egg for breakfast to-morrow morning." + +"This is serious," observed Mr. Prohack, tapping enquiringly the +superficies of his digestive apparatus. + +"Arthur!" cried Eve. "Why are you such a tease to-night? You're only +trying to make the child feel awkward. You know you've had quite enough. +And I'm sure it was all very cleverly cooked--considering. You'll be ill +in the middle of the night if you keep on, and then I shall have to get +up and look after you, as usual." Eve had the air of defending her +daughter, but something, some reserve in her voice, showed that she was +defending, not her daughter, but merely and generally the whole race of +house-wives against the whole race of consuming and hypercritical males; +she was even defending the Eve who had provided much-criticised meals in +the distant past. Such was her skill that she could do this while +implying, so subtly yet so effectively, that Sissie, the wicked, +shameless, mamma-scorning bride, was by no means forgiven in the secret +heart of the mother. + +"You are doubtless right, lady," Mr. Prohack agreed. "You always could +judge better than I could myself when I had had enough, and what would +be the ultimate consequences of my eating. And as for your lessons in +manners, what an ill-bred lout I was before I met you, and what an +impossible person I should have been had you not taken me in hand night +and day for all these years! It isn't that I'm worse than the average +husband; it is merely that wives are the sole repositories of the +civilising influence. Were it not for them we should still be tearing +steaks to pieces with our fingers. I daresay I have eaten enough--anyhow +I've had far more than anybody else--and even if I hadn't, it would not +be at all nice of me not to pretend that I hadn't. And after all, if the +worst comes to the worst, I can always have a slice of cold beef and a +glass of beer when I get home, can't I?" + +Sissie, though blushing ever so little, maintained an excellent front. +She certainly looked dainty and charming,--more specifically so than she +had ever looked; indeed, utterly the young bride. She was in morning +dress, to comply with her own edict against formality, and also to mark +her new, enthusiastic disapproval of the modern craze for luxurious +display; but it was a delightful, if inexpensive, dress. She had taken +considerable trouble over the family dinner, devising, concocting, +cooking, and presiding over it from beginning to end, and being +consistently bright, wise, able, and resourceful throughout--an apostle +of chafing-dish cookery determined to prove that chafing-dish cookery +combined efficiency, toothsomeness and economy to a degree never before +known. And she had neatly pointed out more than once that waste was +impossible under her system and that, servants being dispensed with, the +great originating cause of waste had indeed been radically removed. She +had not informed her guests of the precise cost in money of the +unprecedentedly cheap and nourishing meal, but she had come near to +doing so; and she would surely have indicated that there had been +neither too much nor too little, but just amply sufficient, had not her +absurd and contrarious father displayed a not uncharacteristic lack of +tact at the closing stage of the ingenious collation. + +Moreover, she seemed, despite her generous build, to have somehow fitted +herself to the small size of the flat. She did not dwarf it, as clumsier +women are apt to dwarf their tiny homes in the centre of London. On the +contrary she gave to it the illusion of spaciousness; and beyond +question she had in a surprisingly short time transformed it from a +bachelor's flat into a conjugal nest, cushiony, flowery, knicknacky, and +perilously seductive to the eye without being too reassuring to the +limbs. + +Mr. Prohack was accepting a cigarette, having been told that Ozzie never +smoked cigars, when there was a great ring which filled the entire flat +as the last trump may be expected to fill the entire earth, and Mr. +Prohack dropped the cigarette, muttering: + +"I think I'll smoke that afterwards." + +"Good gracious!" the flat mistress exclaimed. "I wonder who that can be. +Just go and see, Ozzie, darling." And she looked at Ozzie as if to say: +"I hope it isn't one of your indiscreet bachelor friends." + +Ozzie hastened obediently out. + +"It may be Charlie," ventured Eve. "Wouldn't it be nice if he called?" + +"Yes, wouldn't it?" Sissie agreed. "I did 'phone him up to try to get +him to dinner, but naturally he was away for the day. He's always as +invisible as a millionaire nowadays. Besides I feel somehow this place +would be too much, too humble, for the mighty Charles. Buckingham Palace +would be more in his line. But we can't all be speculators and +profiteers." + +"Sissie!" protested their mother mildly. + +After mysterious and intriguing noises at the front-door had finished, +and the front-door had made the whole flat vibrate to its bang, Ozzie +puffed into the room with three packages, the two smaller being piled +upon the third. + +"They're addressed to you," said Ozzie to his father-in-law. + +"Did you give the man anything?" Sissie asked quickly. + +"No, it was Carthew and the parlourmaid--Machin, is her name?" + +"Oh!" said Sissie, apparently relieved. + +"Now let us see," said Mr. Prohack, starting at once upon the packages. + +"Don't waste that string, dad," Sissie enjoined him anxiously. + +"Eh? What do you say?" murmured Mr. Prohack, carefully cutting string on +all sides of all packages, and tearing first-rate brown paper into +useless strips. He produced from the packages four bottles of champagne +of four different brands, a quantity of pate de foie gras, a jar of +caviare, and several bunches of grapes that must have been grown under +the most unnatural and costly conditions. + +"What ever's this?" Sissie demanded, uneasily. + +"Arthur!" said Eve. "Whatever's the meaning of this?" + +"It has a deep significance," replied Mr. Prohack. "The only fault I +have to find with it is that it has arrived rather late--and yet +perhaps, like Bluecher, not too late. You can call it a wedding present +if you choose, daughter. Or if you choose you can call it simply +caviare, pate de foie gras, grapes and champagne. I really have not had +the courage to give you a wedding present," he continued, "knowing how +particular you are about ostentation. But I thought if I sent something +along that we could all join in consuming instantly, I couldn't possibly +do any harm." + +"We haven't any champagne glasses," said Sissie coldly. + +"Champagne glasses, child! You ought never to drink champagne out of +champagne glasses. Tumblers are the only thing for champagne. Some +tumblers, Ozzie. And a tin-opener. You must have a tin-opener. I feel +convinced you have a tin-opener. Upon my soul, Eve, I was right after +all. I _am_ hungry, but my hunger is nothing to my thirst. I'm beginning +to suspect that I must be the average sensual man." + +"Arthur!" Eve warned him. "If you eat any of that caviare you're bound +to be ill." + +"Not if I mix it with pate de foi gras, my pet. It is notorious that +they are mutual antidotes, especially when followed by the grape cure. +Now, ladies and Ozzie, don't exasperate me by being coy. Fall to! +Ingurgitate. Ozzie, be a man for a change." Mr. Prohack seemed to +intimidate everybody to such an extent that Sissie herself went off to +secure tumblers. + +"But why are you opening another bottle, father?" she asked in alarm on +her return. "This one isn't half empty." + +"We shall try all four brands," said Mr. Prohack. + +"But what a waste!" + +"Know, my child," said Mr. Prohack, with marked and solemn +sententiousness. "Know that in an elaborately organised society, waste +has its moral uses. Know further that nothing is more contrary to the +truth than the proverb that enough is as good as a feast. Know still +further that though the habit of wastefulness may have its dangers, it +is not nearly so dangerous as the habit of self-righteousness, or as the +habit of nearness, both of which contract the soul until it's more like +a prune than a plum. Be a plum, my child, and let who will be a prune." + +It was at this moment that Eve showed her true greatness. + +"Come along, Sissie," said she, after an assaying glance at her husband +and another at her daughter. "Let's humour him. It isn't often he's in +such good spirits, is it?" + +Sissie's face cleared, and with a wisdom really beyond her years she +accepted the situation, the insult, the reproof, the lesson. As for Mr. +Prohack, he felt happier, more gay, than he had felt all day,--not as +the effect of champagne and caviare, but as the effect of the +realisation of his prodigious sagacity in having foreseen that Sissie's +hospitality would be what it had been. He was glad also that his +daughter had displayed commonsense, and he began to admire her again, +and in proportion as she perceived that he was admiring her, so she +consciously increased her charm; for the fact was, she was very young, +very impressionable, very anxious to do the right thing. + +"Have another glass, Ozzie," urged Mr. Prohack. + +Ozzie looked at his powerful bride for guidance. + +"Do have another glass, you darling old silly," said the bride. + +"There will be no need to open the other two bottles," said Mr. Prohack. +"Indeed, I need only have opened one.... I shall probably call here +again soon." + +At this point there was another ring at the front-door. + +"So you've condescended!" Sissie greeted Charles when Ozzie brought him +into the room, and then, catching her father's eye and being anxious to +rest secure in the paternal admiration, she added: "Anyway it was very +decent of you to come. I know how busy you are." + +Charles raised his eyebrows at this astonishing piece of sisterliness. +His mother kissed him fondly, having received from Mr. Prohack during +the day the delicatest, filmiest hint that perhaps Charlie was not at +the moment fabulously prospering. + +"Your father is very gay to-night," said she, gazing at Charlie as +though she read into the recesses of his soul and could see a martyrdom +there, though in fact she could not penetrate any further than the boy's +eyeballs. + +"I beg you to note," Mr. Prohack remarked. "That as the glasses have +only been filled once, and three of them are at least a quarter full, +only the equivalent of two and a half champagne glasses has actually +been drunk by four people, which will not explain much gaiety. If the +old gentleman is gay, and he does not assert that he is not, the true +reason lies in either the caviare or the pate de foie gras, or in his +crystal conscience. Have a drink, Charles?" + +"Finish mine, my pet," said Eve, holding forth her tumbler, and Charlie +obeyed. + +"A touching sight," observed Mr. Prohack. "Now as Charlie has managed to +spare us a few minutes out of his thrilling existence, I want to have a +few words with him in private about an affair of state. There's nothing +that you oughtn't to hear," he addressed the company, "but a great deal +that you probably wouldn't understand--and the last thing we desire is +to humiliate you. That's so, isn't it, Carlos?" + +"It is," Charles quickly agreed, without a sign of self-consciousness. + +"Now then, hostess, can you lend us another room,--boudoir, +morning-room, smoking-room, card-room, even ball-room; anything will do +for us. Possibly Ozzie's study...." + +"Father! Father!" Sissie warned him against an excess of facetiousness. +"You can either go into our bedroom or you can sit on the stairs, and +talk." + +As father and son disappeared together into the bedroom, which +constituted a full half of the entire flat, Mr. Prohack noticed on his +wife's features an expression of anxiety tempered by an assured +confidence in his own wisdom and force. He knew indeed that he had made +quite a favourable sensation by his handling of Sissie's tendency to a +hard austerity. + +Nevertheless, when Charles shut the door of the chamber and they were +enclosed together, Mr. Prohack could feel his mighty heart beating in a +manner worthy of a schoolgirl entering an examination room. The chamber +had apparently been taken bodily out of a doll's house and furnished +with furniture manufactured for pigmies. It was very full, presenting +the aspect of a room in a warehouse. Everything in it was 'bijou,' in +the trade sense, and everything harmonised in a charming Japanese manner +with everything else, except an extra truckle-bed, showing crude iron +feet under a blazing counterpane borrowed from a Russian ballet, which +second bed had evidently just been added for the purposes of conjugal +existence. The dressing-table alone was unmistakably symptomatic of a +woman. Some of Ozzie's wondrous trousers hung from stretchers behind the +door, and the inference was that these had been displaced from the +wardrobe in favour of Sissie's frocks. It was all highly curious and +somewhat pathetic; and Mr. Prohack, contemplating, became anew a +philosopher as he realised that the tiny apartment was the true +expression of his daughter's individuality and volition. She had imposed +this crowded inconvenience upon her willing spouse,--and there was the +grandiose Charles, for whom the best was never good enough, sitting down +nonchalantly on the truckle-bed; and it appeared to Mr. Prohack only a +few weeks ago that the two children had been playing side by side in the +same nursery and giving never a sign that their desires and destinies +would be so curious. Mr. Prohack felt absurdly helpless. True, he was +the father, but he knew that he had nothing whatever to do, beyond +trifling gifts of money and innumerable fairly witty sermons--divided +about equally between the pair, with the evolution of those mysterious +and fundamentally uncontrollable beings, his son and his daughter. The +enigma of life pressed disturbingly upon him, as he took the other bed, +facing Charles, and he wondered whether Sissie in her feminine passion +for self-sacrifice insisted on sleeping in the truckle-contraption +herself, or whether she permitted Ozzie to be uncomfortable. + + +V + + +"I just came along," Charlie opened simply, "because Lady M. was so +positive that I ought to see you--she said that you very much wanted me +to come. It isn't as if I wanted to bother you, or you could do any +good." + +He spoke in an extremely low tone, almost in a whisper, and Mr. Prohack +comprehended that the youth was trying to achieve privacy in a domicile +where all conversation and movements were necessarily more or less +public to the whole flat. Charles's restraint, however, showed little or +no depression, disappointment, or disgust, and no despair. + +"But what's it all about? If I'm not being too curious," Mr. Prohack +enquired cautiously. + +"It's all about my being up the spout, dad. I've had a flutter, and it +hasn't come off, and that's all there is to it. I needn't trouble you +with the details. But you may believe me when I tell you that I shall +bob up again. What's happened to me might have happened to anybody, and +has happened to a pretty fair number of City swells." + +"You mean bankruptcy?" + +"Well, yes, bankruptcy's the word. I'd much better go right through with +it. The chit thinks so, and I agree." + +"The chit?" + +"Mimi." + +"Oh! So you call her that, do you?" + +"No, I never call her that. But that's how I think of her. I call her +Miss Winstock. I'm glad you let me have her. She's been very useful, and +she's going to stick by me--not that there's any blooming sentimental +nonsense about her! Oh, no! By the way, I know the mater and Sis think +she's a bit harum-scarum, and you do, too. Nevertheless she was just as +strong as Lady M. that I should stroll up and confess myself. She said +it was _due_ to you. Lady M. didn't put it quite like that." + +The truckle-bed creaked as Charlie shifted uneasily. They caught a faint +murmur of talk from the other room, and Sissie's laugh. + +"Lady Massulam happened to tell me once that you'd been selling +something before you knew how much it would cost you to buy it. Of +course I don't pretend to understand finance myself--I'm only a civil +servant on the shelf--but to my limited intelligence such a process of +putting the cart before the horse seemed likely to lead to trouble," +said Mr. Prohack, as it were ruminating. + +"Oh! She told you that, did she?" Charlie smiled. "Well, the good lady +was talking through her hat. _That_ affair's all right. At least it +would be if I could carry it through, but of course I can't now. It'll +go into the general mess. If I was free, I wouldn't sell it at all; I'd +keep it; there'd be no end of money in it, and I was selling it too +cheap. It's a combine, or rather it would have been a combine, of two of +the best paper mills in the country, and if I'd got it, and could find +time to manage it,--my word, you'd see! No! What's done me in is a pure +and simple Stock Exchange gamble, my dear father. Nothing but that! R.R. +shares." + +"R.R. What's that?" + +"Dad! Where have you been living these years? Royal Rubber Corporation, +of course. They dropped to eighteen shillings, and they oughtn't to have +done. I bought a whole big packet on the understanding that I should +have a fortnight to fork out. They were bound to go up again. Hadn't +been so low for eleven years. How could I have foreseen that old Sampler +would go and commit suicide and make a panic?" + +"I never read the financial news, except the quotations of my own little +savings, and I've never heard of old Sampler," said Mr. Prohack. + +"Considering he was a front-page item for four days!" Charlie exclaimed, +raising his voice, and then dropping it again. And he related in a few +biting phrases the recent history of the R.R. "I wouldn't have minded so +much," he went on. "If your particular friend, Mr. Softly Bishop, wasn't +at the bottom of my purchase. His name only appears for some of the +shares, but I've got a pretty good idea that it's he who's selling all +of them to yours truly. He must have known something, and a rare fine +thing he'd have made of the deal if I wasn't going bust, because I'm +sure now he was selling to me what he hadn't got." + +Mr. Prohack's whole demeanour changed at the mention of Mr. Bishop's +name. His ridiculous snobbish pride reared itself up within him. He +simply could not bear the idea of Softly Bishop having anything +'against' a member of his family. Sooner would the inconsistent fellow +have allowed innocent widows and orphans to be ruined through Charlie's +plunging than that Softly Bishop should fail to realise a monstrous +profit through the same agency. + +"I'll see you through, my lad," said he, briefly, in an ordinary casual +tone. + +"No thanks. You won't," Charlie replied. "I wouldn't let you, even if +you could. But you can't. It's too big." + +"Ah! How big is it?" Mr. Prohack challengingly raised his chin. + +"Well, if you want to know the truth, it's between a hundred and forty +and a hundred and fifty thousand pounds. I mean, that's what I should +need to save the situation." + +"You?" cried the Terror of the departments in amaze, accustomed though +he was to dealing in millions. He had gravely miscalculated his son. Ten +thousand he could have understood; even twenty thousand. But a hundred +and fifty...! "You must have been mad!" + +"Only because I've failed," said Charles. "Yes. It'll be a great affair. +It'll really make my name. Everybody will expect me to bob up again, and +I shan't disappoint them. Of course some people will say I oughtn't to +have been extravagant. Grand Babylon Hotel and so on. What rot! A +flea-bite! Why, my expenses haven't been seven hundred a month." + +Mr. Prohack sat aghast; but admiration was not absent from his +sentiments. The lad was incredible in the scale of his operations; he +was unreal, wagging his elegant leg so calmly there in the midst of all +that fragile Japanese lacquer--and the family, grotesquely unconscious +of the vastness of the issues, chatting domestically only a few feet +away. But Mr. Prohack was not going to be outdone by his son, however +Napoleonic his son might be. He would maintain his prestige as a father. + +"I'll see you through," he repeated, with studied quietness. + +"But look here, dad. You only came into a hundred thousand. I can't have +you ruining yourself. And even if you did ruin yourself--" + +"I have no intention of ruining myself," said Mr. Prohack. "Nor shall I +change in the slightest degree my mode of life. You don't know +everything, my child. You aren't the only person on earth who can make +money. Where do you imagine you get your gifts from? Your mother?" + +"But--" + +"Be silent. To-morrow morning gilt-edged, immediately saleable +securities will be placed at your disposal for a hundred and fifty +thousand pounds. I never indulge in wildcat stock myself. And let me +tell you there can be no question of _your_ permitting or not +permitting. I'm your father, and please don't forget it. It doesn't +happen to suit me that my infant prodigy of a son should make a mess of +his career; and I won't have it. If there's any doubt in your mind as to +whether you or I are the strongest, rule yourself out of the competition +this instant,--it'll save you trouble in the end." + +Mr. Prohack had never felt so happy in his life; and yet he had had +moments of intense happiness in the past. He could feel the skin of his +face burning. + +"You'll get it all back, dad," said Charlie later. "No amount of +suicides can destroy the assets of the R.R. It's only that the market +lost its head and absolutely broke to pieces under me. In three +months--" + +"My poor boy," Mr. Prohack interrupted him. "Do try not to be an ass." +And he had the pleasing illusion that Charles was just home from school. +"And, mind, not one word, not one word, to anybody whatever." + + +VI + + +The other three were still modestly chatting in the living-room when the +two great mysterious men of affairs returned to them, but Sissie had +cleared the dining-room table and transformed the place into a +drawing-room for the remainder of the evening. They were very feminine; +even Ozzie had something of the feminine attitude of fatalistic +attending upon events beyond feminine control; he had it, indeed, far +more than the vigorous-minded Sissie had it. They were cheerful, with a +cheerfulness that made up in tact what it lacked in sincerity. Mr. +Prohack compared them to passengers on a ship which is in danger. With a +word, with an inflection, he reassured everybody--and yet said +naught--and the cheerfulness instantly became genuine. + +Mr. Prohack was surprised at the intensity of his own feelings. He was +thoroughly thrilled by what he himself had done. Perhaps he had gone too +far in telling Charlie that the putting down of a hundred and fifty +thousand pounds could be accomplished without necessitating any change +in his manner of living; but he did not care what change might be +involved. He had the sense of having performed a huge creative act, and +of the reality of the power of riches,--for weeks he had not been +imaginatively cognisant of the fact that he was rich. + +He glanced secretly at the boy Charles, and said to himself: "To that +boy I am like a god. He was dead, and I have resurrected him. He may +achieve an enormous reputation after all. Anyhow he is an amazing devil +of a fellow, and he's my son, and no one comprehends him as I do." And +Mr. Prohack became jolly to the point of uproariousness--without +touching a glass. He was intoxicated, not by the fermentation of grapes, +but by the magnitude and magnificence of his own gesture. He was the +monarch of the company, and getting a bit conceited about it. + +The sole creature who withstood him in any degree was Sissie. She had +firmness. "She has married the right man,-" said Mr. Prohack to himself. +"The so-called feminine instinct is for the most part absurd, but +occasionally it justifies its reputation. She has chosen her husband +with unerring insight into her needs and his. He will be happy; she +will have the anxieties of responsible power. But _I_ am not her +husband." And he spoke aloud, masterfully: + +"Sissie!" + +"Yes, dad? What now?" + +"I've satisfactorily transacted affairs with my son. I will now try to +do the same with my daughter. A few moments with you in the +council-chamber, please. Oswald also, if you like." + +Sissie smiled kindly at her awaiting spouse. + +"Perhaps I'd better deal with my own father alone, darling." + +Ozzie accepted the decision. + +"Look here. I think I must be off," Charlie put in. "I've got a lot of +work to do." + +"I expect you have," Mr. Prohack concurred. "By the way, you might meet +me at Smathe and Smathe's at ten fifteen in the morning." + +Charlie nodded and slipped away. + +"Infant," said Mr. Prohack to the defiantly smiling bride who awaited +him in the council chamber. "Has your mother said anything to you about +our wedding present?" + +"No, dad." + +"No, of course she hasn't. And do you know why? Because she daren't! +With your infernal independence you've frightened the life out of the +poor lady; that's what you've done. Your mother will doubtless have a +talk with me to-night. And to-morrow she will tell you what she has +decided to give you. Please let there be no nonsense. Whatever the gift +is, I shall be obliged if you will accept it--and use it, without +troubling us with any of your theories about the proper conduct of life. +Wisdom and righteousness existed before you, and there's just a chance +that they'll exist after you. Do you take me?" + +"Quite, father." + +"Good. You may become a great girl yet. We are now going home. Thanks +for a very pleasant evening." + +In the car, beautifully alone with Eve, who was in a restful mood, Mr. +Prohack said: + +"I shall be very ill in a few hours. Pate de foi gras is the devil, but +caviare is Beelzebub himself." + +Eve merely gazed at him in gentle, hopeless reproach. He prophesied +truly. He was very ill. And yet through the succeeding crises he kept +smiling, sardonically. + +"When I think," he murmured once with grimness, "that that fellow +Bishop had the impudence to ask us to lunch--and Charlie too! Charlie +too!" Eve, attendant, enquired sadly what he was talking about. + +"Nothing, nothing," said he. "My mind is wandering. Let it." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE YACHT + +I + + +Mr. Prohack was lounging over his breakfast in the original old house in +the Square behind Hyde Park. He came to be there because that same house +had been his wedding present to Sissie, who now occupied it with her +spouse, and because the noble mansion in Manchester Square was being +re-decorated (under compulsion of some clause in the antique lease) and +Eve had invited him to leave the affair entirely to her. In the few +months since Charlie's great crisis, all things conspired together to +prove once more to Mr. Prohack that calamities expected never arrive. +Even the British Empire had continued to cohere, and revolution seemed +to be further off than ever before. The greatest menace to his peace of +mind, the League of all the Arts, had of course quietly ceased to exist; +but it had established Eve as a hostess. And Eve as a hostess had +gradually given up boring herself and her husband by large and stiff +parties, and they had gone back to entertaining none but +well-established and intimate friends with the maximum of informality as +of old,--to such an extent that occasionally in the vast and gorgeous +dining-room of the noble mansion Eve would have the roast planted on the +table and would carve it herself, also as of old; Brool did not seem to +mind. + +Mr. Prohack had bought the lease of the noble mansion, with all the +contents thereof, merely because this appeared to be the easiest thing +to do. He had not been forced to change his manner of life; far from it. +Owing to a happy vicissitude in the story of the R.R. Corporation +Charlie had called upon his father for only a very small portion of the +offered one hundred and fifty thousand pounds, and had even repaid that +within a few weeks. Matters had thereafter come to such a pass with +Charlie that he had reached the pages of _The Daily Picture_, and was +reputed to be arousing the jealousy of youthful millionaires in the +United States; also the figure which he paid weekly for rent of his +offices in the Grand Babylon Hotel was an item of common knowledge in +the best clubs and not to know it was to be behind the times in current +information. No member of his family now ventured to offer advice to +Charlie, who still, however, looked astonishingly like the old Charlie +of motor-bicycle transactions. + +The fact is, people do not easily change. Mr. Prohack had seemed to +change for a space, but if indeed any change had occurred in him, he had +changed back. Scientific idleness? Turkish baths? Dandyism? All +vanished, contemned, forgotten. To think of them merely annoyed him. He +did not care what necktie he wore. Even dancing had gone the same way. +The dancing season was over until October, and he knew he would never +begin again. He cared not to dance with the middle-aged, and if he +danced with the young he felt that he was making a fool of himself. + +It had been rather a lark to come and stay for a few days in his old +home,--to pass the sacred door of the conjugal bedroom (closed for ever +to him) and mount to Charlie's room, into which Sissie had put the bulk +of the furniture from the Japanese flat--without overcrowding it. +Decidedly amusing to sleep in Charlie's old little room! But the +romantic sensation had given way to the sensation of the hardness of the +bed. + +Breakfast achieved, Mr. Prohack wondered what he should do next, for he +had nothing to do; he had no worries, and almost no solicitudes; he had +successfully adapted himself to his environment. Through the half-open +door of the dining-room he heard Sissie and Ozzie. Ozzie was off to the +day's business, and Sissie was seeing him out of the house, as Eve used +to see Mr. Prohack out. Ozzie, by reason of a wedding present of ten +thousand pounds given in defiance of Sissie's theories, and with the +help of his own savings, was an important fellow now in the theatrical +world, having attained a partnership with the Napoleon of the stage. + +"You'd no business to send for the doctor without telling me," Sissie +was saying in her harsh tone. "What do I want with a doctor?" + +"I thought it would be for the best, dear," came Ozzie's lisping reply. + +"Well, it won't, my boy." + +The door banged. + +"Eve never saw me off like that," Mr. Prohack reflected. + +Sissie entered the room, some letters in her hand. She was exceedingly +attractive, matron-like, interesting--but formidable. + +Said Mr. Prohack, glancing up at her: + +"It is the duty of the man to protect and the woman to charm--and I +don't care who knows it." + +"What on earth do you mean, dad?" + +"I mean that it is the duty of the man to protect and the woman to +_charm_." + +Sissie flushed. + +"Ozzie and I understand each other, but you don't," said she, and made a +delicious rude face. "Carthew's brought these letters and he's waiting +for orders about the car." She departed. + +Among the few letters was one from Softly Bishop, dated Rangoon. It was +full of the world-tour. "We had a success at Calcutta that really does +baffle description," it said. + +"'We!'" commented Mr. Prohack. There was a postscript: "By the way, I've +only just learnt that it was your son who was buying those Royal Rubber +shares. I do hope he was not inconvenienced. I need not say that if I +had had the slightest idea who was standing the racket I should have +waived--" And so on. + +"Would you!" commented Mr. Prohack. "I see you doing it. And what's more +I bet you only wrote the letter for the sake of the postscript. Your +tour is not a striking success, and you'll be wanting to do business +with me when you come back, but you won't do it.... And here I am +lecturing Sissie about hardness!" + +He rang the bell and told a servant who was a perfect stranger to him to +tell Carthew that he should not want the car. + +"May Carthew speak to you, sir?" said the servant returning. + +"Carthew may," said he, and the servant thought what an odd gentleman +Mr. Prohack was. + +"Well, Carthew," said he, when the chauffeur, perturbed, entered the +room. "This is quite like old times, isn't it? Sit down and have a +cigarette. What's wrong?" + +"Well, sir," replied Carthew, after he had lighted the cigarette and +ejected a flake of tobacco into the hearth. "There may be something +wrong or there mayn't, if you understand what I mean. But I'm thinking +of getting married." + +"Oh! But what about that wife of yours?" + +"Oh! Her! She's dead, all right. I never said anything, feeling as it +might be ashamed of her." + +"But I thought you'd done with women!" + +"So did I, sir. But the question always is, Have women done with you? I +was helping her to lift pictures down yesterday, and she was standing +on a chair. And something came over me. And there you are before you +know where you are, sir, if you understand what I mean." + +"Perfectly, Carthew. But who is it?" + +"Machin, sir. To cut a long story short, sir, I'd been thinking about +her for the better part of some time, because of the boy, sir, because +of the boy. She likes him. If it hadn't been for the boy--" + +"Careful, Carthew!" + +"Well, perhaps you're right, sir. She'd have copped me anyway." + +"I congratulate you, Carthew. You've been copped by the best parlourmaid +in London." + +"Thank you, sir. I think I'll be getting along, sir." + +"Have you told Mrs. Prohack?" + +"I thought I'd best leave that to Machin, sir." + +Mr. Prohack waved a hand, thoughtful. He heard Carthew leave. He heard +Dr. Veiga arrive, and then he heard Dr. Veiga leaving, and rushed to the +dining-room door. + +"Veiga! A moment. Come in. Everything all right?" + +"Of course. Absolutely normal. But you know what these young husbands +are. I can't stop unless you're really ill, my friend." + +"I'm worse than really ill," said Mr. Prohack, shutting the door. "I'm +really bored. I'm surrounded by the most interesting phenomena and I'm +really bored. I've taken to heart all your advice and I'm really bored. +So there!" + +The agreeable, untidy, unprofessional Portuguese quack twinkled at him, +and then said in his thick, southern, highly un-English voice: "The +remedy may be worse than the disease. You are bored because you have no +worries, my friend. I will give you advice. Go back to your Treasury." + +"I cannot," said Mr. Prohack. "I've resigned. I found out that my friend +Hunter was expecting promotion in my place." + +"Ah, well!" replied Dr. Veiga with strange sardonic indifference. "If +you will sacrifice yourself to your friends you must take the +consequences like a man. I will talk to you some other time, when I've +got nothing better to do. I am very busy, telling people what they +already know." And he went. + +A minute later Charlie arrived in a car suitable to his grandeur. + +"Look here, dad," said Charlie in a hurry. "If you're game for a day out +I particularly want to show you something. And incidentally you'll see +some driving, believe me!" + +"My will is made! I am game," answered Mr. Prohack, delighted at the +prospect of any diversion, however perilous. + + + + +II + +When Charlie drew up at the Royal Pier, Southampton (having reached +there in rather less time than the train journey and a taxi at each end +would have required), he silently handed over the wheel to the +chauffeur, and led his mystified but unenquiring father down the steps +on the west side of the pier. A man in a blue suit with a peaked cap and +a white cover on the cap was standing at the foot of the steps, just +above the water and above a motor-launch containing two other men in +blue jerseys with the name "Northwind" on their breasts and on their +foreheads. A blue ensign was flying at the stem of the launch. + +"How d'ye do, Snow?" Charlie greeted the first man, who raised his cap. + +Father and son got into the launch and the man after them: the launch +began to snort, and off it went at a racing speed from the pier towards +midchannel. Mr. Prohack, who said not a word, perceived a string of +vessels of various sizes which he judged to be private yachts, though he +had no experience whatever of yachts. Some of them flew bunting and some +of them didn't; but they all without exception appeared, as Mr. Prohack +would have expected, to be the very symbols of complicated elegance and +luxury, shining and glittering buoyantly there on the brilliant blue +water under the summer sun. The launch was rushing headlong through its +own white surge towards the largest of these majestic toys. As it +approached the string Mr. Prohack saw that all the yachts were much +larger than he imagined, and that the largest was enormous. The launch +flicked itself round the stern of that yacht, upon which Mr. Prohack +read the word "Northwind" in gold, and halted bobbing at a staircase +whose rails were white ropes, slung against a dark blue wall; the wall +was the side of the yacht. Mr. Prohack climbed out of the bobbing +launch, and the staircase had the solidity under his feet of masonry on +earth. High up, glancing over the wall, was a capped face. + +"How d'ye do, skipper," called Charlie, and when he had got his parent +on to the deck, he said: "Skipper, this is my father. Dad--Captain +Crowley." + +Mr. Prohack shook hands with a short, stoutish nervous man with an +honest, grim, marine face. + +"Everything all right?" + +"Yes, sir. Glad you've come at last, sir." + +"Good!" + +Charlie turned away from the captain to his father. Mr. Prohack saw a +man hauling a three-cornered flag up the chief of the three masts which +the ship possessed, and another man hauling a large oblong flag up a +pole at the stern. + +"What is the significance of this flag-raising?" asked Mr. Prohack. + +"The significance is that the owner has come aboard," Charlie replied, +not wholly without self-consciousness. "Come on. Have a look at her. +Come on, skipper. Do the honours. She used to be a Mediterranean trader. +The former owner turned her into a yacht. He says she cost him a hundred +thousand by the time she was finished. I can believe it." + +Mr. Prohack also believed it, easily; he believed it more and more +easily as he was trotted from deck to deck and from bedroom to bedroom, +and sitting-room to sitting-room, and library to smoking-room, and +music-room to lounge, and especially from bathroom to bathroom. In no +land habitation had Mr. Prohack seen so many, or such marmoreal, or such +luxurious bathrooms. What particularly astonished Mr. Prohack was the +exceeding and minute finish of everything, and what astonished him even +more than the finish was the cleanliness of everything. + +"Dirty place to be in, sir, Southampton," grinned the skipper. "We do +the best we can." + +They reached the dining-room, an apartment in glossy bird's-eye maple +set in the midst of the virgin-white promenade deck. + +"By the way, lunch, please," said Charlie. + +"Yes, sir," responded eagerly the elder of two attendants in jackets +striped blue and white. + +"Have a wash, guv'nor? Thanks, skipper, that'll do for the present." + +Mr. Prohack washed in amplitudinous marble, and wiped his paternal face +upon diaper into which was woven the name "Northwind." He then, with his +son, ate an enormous and intricate lunch and drank champagne out of +crystal engraved with the name "Northwind," served to him by a +ceremonious person in white gloves. Charlie was somewhat taciturn, but +over the coffee he seemed to brighten up. + +"Well, what do you think of the old hulk?" + +"She must need an awful lot of men," said Mr. Prohack. + +"Pretty fair. The wages bill is seven hundred a month." + +"She's enormous," continued Mr. Prohack lamely. + +"Oh, no! Seven hundred tons Thames measurement. You see those funnels +over there," and Charlie pointed through the port windows to a row of +four funnels rising over great sheds. "That's the _Mauretania_. She's a +hundred times as big as this thing. She could almost sling this affair +in her davits." + +"Indeed! Still, I maintain that this antique wreck is enormous," Mr. +Prohack insisted. + +They walked out on deck. + +"Hello! Here's the chit. You can always count on _her_!" said Charles. + +The launch was again approaching the yacht, and a tiny figure with a +despatch case on her lap sat smiling in the stern-sheets. + +"She's come down by train," Charles explained. + +Miss Winstock in her feminineness made a delicious spectacle on the +spotless deck. She nearly laughed with delight as she acknowledged Mr. +Prohack's grave salute and shook hands with him, but when Charlie said: +"Anything urgent?" she grew grave and tense, becoming the faithful, +urgent, confidential employe in an instant. + +"Only this," she said, opening the despatch case and producing a +telegram. + +"Confound it!" remarked Charles, having read the telegram. "Here, you, +Snow. Please see that Miss Winstock has something to eat at once. +That'll do, Miss Winstock." + +"Yes, Mr. Prohack," she said dutifully. + +"And his mother thought he would be marrying her!" Mr. Prohack senior +reflected. "He'll no more marry her than he'll marry Machin. Goodness +knows whom he will marry. It might be a princess." + +"You remember that paper concern--newsprint stuff--I've mentioned to you +once or twice," said Charlie to his father, dropping into a +basket-chair. "Sit down, will you, dad? I've had no luck with it yet." +He flourished the telegram. "Here the new manager I appointed has gone +and got rheumatic fever up in Aberdeen. No good for six months at least, +if ever. It's a great thing if I could only really get it going. But no! +The luck's wrong. And yet a sound fellow with brains could put that +affair into such shape in a year that I could sell it at a profit of +four hundred per cent to the Southern Combine. However--" + +Soon afterwards he went below to talk to the chit, and the skipper took +charge of Mr. Prohack and displayed to him the engine-room, the +officers' quarters, the forecastle, the galley, and all manner of arcana +that Charlie had grandiosely neglected. + +"It's a world!" said Mr. Prohack, but the skipper did not quite +comprehend the remark. + +"Well," said Charlie, returning. "We'll have some tea and then we must +be off again. I have to be in town to-night. Have you seen everything? +What's the verdict? Some ship, eh?" + +"Some ship," agreed Mr. Prohack. "But the most shockingly uneconomic +thing I've ever met with in all my life. How often do you use the +yacht?" + +"Well, I haven't been able to use her yet. She's been lying here waiting +for me for nearly a month. I hope to get a few days off soon." + +"I understand there's a crew of thirty odd, all able-bodied and knowing +their job, I suppose. And all waiting for a month to give you and me a +lunch and a tea. Seven hundred pounds in wages alone for lunch and a tea +for two, without counting the food and the washing!" + +"And why not, dad?" Charlie retorted calmly. "I've got to spend a bit of +money uneconomically, and there's nothing like a yacht for doing it. +I've no use for racing, and moreover it's too difficult not to mix with +rascals if you go in for racing, and I don't care for rascals. Also it's +a mug's game, and I don't want to be a mug. As for young women, no! They +only interest me at present as dancing partners, and they cost me +nothing. A good yacht's the sole possible thing for my case, and a yacht +brings you into contact with clean and decent people, not bookmakers. I +bought this boat for thirty-three thousand, and she's a marvellous +bargain, and that's something." + +"But why spend money uneconomically at all?" + +"Because I said and swore I would. Didn't I come back from the war and +try all I knew to obtain the inestimable privilege of earning my living +by doing something useful? Did I succeed in obtaining the privilege? +Why, nobody would look at me! And there were tens of thousands like me. +Well, I said I'd take it out of this noble country of mine, and I am +doing; and I shall keep on doing until I'm tired. These thirty men or so +here might be at some useful productive work, fishing or +merchant-marining. They're otherwise engaged. They're spending a +pleasant wasteful month over our lunch and tea. That's what I enjoy. It +makes me smile to myself when I wake up in the middle of the night.... +I'm showing my beloved country who's won the Peace." + +"It's a scheme," murmured Mr. Prohack, rendered thoughtful as much by +the quiet and intense manner, as by the matter, of his son's oration. +"Boyish, of course, but not without charm." + +"We were most of us boys," said Charlie. + +Mr. Prohack marshalled, in his head, the perfectly plain, simple +reasoning necessary to crush Charlie to powder, and, before crushing +him, to expose to him the crudity of his conceptions of organised social +existence. But he said nothing, having hit on another procedure for +carrying out his parental duty to Charles. Shortly afterwards they +departed from the yacht in the launch. Long ere they reached the waiting +motor-car the bunting had been hauled down. + +In the car Mr. Prohack said: + +"Tell me something more about that paper-making business. It sounds +interesting." + + +III + +When Mr. Prohack reached his daughter's house again late in the night, +it was his wife who opened the door to him. + +"Good heavens, Arthur! Where have you been? Poor Sissie is in such a +state--I was obliged to come over and stay with her. She needs the +greatest care." + +"We had a breakdown," said Mr. Prohack, rather guiltily. + +"Who's we? Where? What breakdown? You went off without saying a word to +any one. I really can't imagine what you were thinking about. You're +just like a child sometimes." + +"I went down to Southampton with Charlie," the culprit explained, giving +a brief and imperfect history of the day, and adding that on the way +home he had made a detour with Charles to look at a paper-manufactory. + +"And you couldn't have telephoned!" + +"Never thought of it!" + +"I'll run and tap at Sissie's door and tell her. Ozzie's with her. You'd +better go straight to bed." + +"I'm hungry." + +Eve made a deprecating and expostulatory noise with her tongue against +her upper teeth. + +"I'll bring you something to eat. At least I'll try to find something," +said she. + +"And are you sleeping here, too? Where?" Mr. Prohack demanded when Eve +crept into Charlie's old bedroom with a tray in her hands. + +"I had to stay. I couldn't leave the girl. I'm sleeping in her old +room." + +"The worst of these kids' rooms," said Mr. Prohack, with an affectation +of calm, "is that there are no easy chairs in them. It never struck me +before. Look here, you sit on the bed and put the tray down _there_, +and I'll occupy this so-called chair. Now, I don't want any sermons. And +what is more, I can't eat unless you do. But I tell you I'm very hungry. +So would you be, if you'd had my day." + +"You won't sleep if you eat much." + +"I don't care if I don't. Is this whiskey? What--bread and cheese? The +simple life! I'm not used to it.... Where are you off to?" + +"There came a letter for you. I brought it along. It's in the other +bedroom." + +"Open it for me, my good child," said Mr. Prohack, his mouth full and +his hands occupied, when she returned. She did so. + +"It seems to me that you'd better read this yourself," she said, +naughtily. + +The letter was from Lady Massulam, signed only with her initials, +announcing with a queer brevity that she had suddenly decided to go back +at once to her native country to live. + +"How strange!" exclaimed Mr. Prohack, trying to be airy. "Listen! What +do you make of it. You're a woman, aren't you?" + +"I make of it," said Eve, "that she's running away from you. She's +afraid of herself, that's what she is! Didn't I always tell you? Oh! +Arthur. How simple you are! But fancy! At her age! Oh, my poor boy! +Shall you get over it?" Eve bent forward and kissed the poor boy, who +was cursing himself for not succeeding in not being self-conscious. + +"Rot!" he exploded at last. "I said you were a woman, and by all the +gods you are! Give me some more food." + +He was aware of a very peculiar and unprecedented thrill. He hated to +credit Eve's absurd insinuation, but...! And Eve looked at him +superiorly, triumphant, sure of him, sure of her everlasting power over +him! Yet she was not romantic, and her plump person did not in the least +symbolise romance. + +"I've a piece of news for you," he said, after a pause. "After to-night +I've done with women and idleness. I'm going into business. I've bought +half of that paper-making concern from your singular son, and I'm going +to put it on its legs. I know nothing about paper-making, and I can only +hope that the London office is not as dirty and untidy as the works. I'd +no idea what works were. The whole thing will be a dreadful worry, and I +shall probably make a horrid mess of it, but Charlie seems to think I +shan't." + +"But why--what's come over you, Arthur? Surely we've got enough money. +What _has_ come over you? I never could make you out and I never shall." + +"Nothing! Nothing!" said he. "Only I've got a sort of idea that some one +ought to be economic and productive. It may kill me, but I'll die +producing, anyhow." + +He waited for her to begin upbraiding him for capricious folly and +expatiating upon the fragility of his health. But you never know where +you are with an Eve. Eves have the most disconcerting gleams of insight. +She said: + +"I'm rather glad. I was getting anxious about you." + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MR. 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