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.
