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 rôle 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.
"hello, 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, naïve, 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?
