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 ofThe 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. Ha 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.
"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, youhavebeen 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.
"ButInever 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 youdidfind 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.
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 whatarewe 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 ofThe Daily Pictureto me."
At eleven o'clock of the morning thestatus quowas 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.Notat St George's andnotat 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 whatdidyou 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 £1. 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.
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.