CHAPTER IX
COLLISION
I
After an eventful night Mr. Prohack woke up late to breakfast in bed.Theoretically he hated breakfast in bed, but in practice he had recentlyfound that the inconveniences to himself were negligible compared to theintense and triumphant pleasure which his wife took in seeing himbreakfast in bed, in being fully dressed while he was in pyjamas anddressing-gown, and in presiding over the meal and over him. RecentlyMarian had formed the habit of rising earlier and appearing to be verybusy upon various minute jobs at an hour when, a few weeks previously,she would scarcely have decided that day had given place to night. Mr.Prohack, without being able precisely to define it, thought that heunderstood the psychology of the change in this unique woman. Underordinary circumstances he would have been worried by his sense offatigue, but now, as he had nothing whatever to do, he did not much carewhether he was tired or not. Neither the office nor the State wouldsuffer through his lack of tone.
The events of the night had happened exclusively inside Mr. Prohack'shead. Nor were they traceable to the demeanour of his wife when hereturned home from the studio. She had mysteriously behaved to him asthough nocturnal excursions to disgraceful daughters in remote quartersof London were part of his daily routine. She had been very sweet andvery incurious. Whereon Mr. Prohack had said to himself: "She has somediplomatic reason for being an angel." And even if she had not been anangel, even if she had been the very reverse of an angel, Mr. Prohackwould not have minded, and his night would not have been thereby upset;for he regarded her as a beautiful natural phenomenon is regarded by ascientist, lovingly and wonderingly, and he was incapable of beingirritated for more than a few seconds by anything that might be done orsaid by this forest creature of the prime who had strayed charminglyinto the twentieth century. He was a very fortunate husband.
No! The eventfulness of the night originated in reflection upon therelations between Sissie and Ozzie Morfey. If thoughts could takephysical shape and solidity, the events of the night would have amountedto terrible collisions and catastrophes in the devil-haunted abysses ofMr. Prohack's brain. The forces of evil were massacring all opponentsbetween three and four a.m. It was at this period Mr. Prohack wasconvinced that Sissie, in addition to being an indescribably heartlessdaughter, was a perfect fool hoodwinked by a perfect ass, and thatOzzie's motive in the affair was not solely or chiefly admiration forSissie, but admiration of the great fortune which, he had learnt, hadfallen into the lap of Sissie's father. After five o'clock, according tothe usual sequence, the forces of evil lost ground, and at six-thirty,when the oblong of the looking-glass glimmered faintly in the dawn, Mr.Prohack said roundly: "I am an idiot," and went to sleep.
"Now, darling," said Eve when he emerged from the bathroom. "Don't wasteany more time. I want you to give me your opinion about somethingdownstairs."
"Child," said Mr. Prohack. "What on earth do you mean--'wasting time'?Haven't you insisted, and hasn't your precious doctor insisted, that Imust read the papers for an hour in bed after I've had my breakfast inbed? Talk about 'wasting time' indeed!"
"Yes, of course darling," Eve concurred, amazingly angelic. "I don'tmean you've been wasting time; only I don't want you to waste any _more_time."
"My mistake," said Mr. Prohack.
From mere malice and wickedness he spun out the business of dressing tonearly its customary length, and twice Eve came uneasily into thebedroom to see if she could be of assistance to him. No nurse could havebeen so beautifully attentive. During one of her absences he slippedfurtively downstairs into the drawing-room, where he began to strum onthe piano, though the room was yet by no means properly warm. She cameafter him, admirably pretending not to notice that he was behavingunusually. She was attired for the street, and she carried his hat andhis thickest overcoat.
"You're coming out," said she, holding up the overcoat cajolingly.
"That's just where you're mistaken," said he.
"But I want to show you something."
"What do you want to show me?"
"You shall see when you come out."
"Is it by chance the bird of the mountains that I am to see?"
"The bird of the mountains? My dear Arthur! What are you driving atnow?"
"Is it the Eagle car?" And as she staggered speechless under the blow heproceeded: "Ah! Did you think you could deceive _me_ with your infantileconspiracies and your tacit deceits and your false smiles?"
She blushed.
"Some one's told you. And I do think it's a shame!"
"And who should have told me? Who have I seen? I suppose you think Ipicked up the information at Putney last night. And haven't you openedall my letters since I was ill, on the pretext of saving me worry? ShallI tell you how I know? I knew from your face. Your face, my innocent,can't be read like a book. It can be read like a newspaper placard, andfor days past I've seen on it, 'Extra special. Exciting purchase of amotor-car by a cunning wife.'" Then he laughed. "No, chit. That fellowOswald Morfey, let it out last night."
When she had indignantly enquired how Oswald Morfey came to be mixed upin her private matters, she said:
"Well, darling, I hope I needn't tell you that my _sole_ object was tosave you trouble. The car simply had to be bought, and as quickly aspossible, so I did it. Need I tell you--"
"You needn't, certainly," Mr. Prohack agreed, and going to the window helifted the curtain. Yes. There stood a real car, a landaulette, with theillustrous eagle on the front of its radiator, and a real chauffeur byits side. The thing seemed entirely miraculous to Mr. Prohack; and hewas rather impressed by his wife's daring and enterprise. After all, itwas somewhat of an undertaking for an unworldly woman to go out aloneinto the world and buy a motor-car and engage a chauffeur, not tomention clothing the chauffeur. But Mr. Prohack kept all hisimperturbability.
"Isn't it lovely?"
"Is it paid for?"
"Oh, no!"
"Didn't you have to pay any deposit?"
"Of course I didn't. I gave your name, and that was sufficient. Weneedn't keep it if we don't like it after the trial run."
"And is it insured?"
"Of course, darling."
"And what about the licence?"
"Oh! The Eagle Company saw to all those stupid things for me."
"And how many times have you forged my signature while I've been lyingon a bed of pain?"
"The fact is, darling, I made the purchase in my own name. Now come_along_. We're going round the park."
The way she patted his overcoat when she had got it on to him...! Theway she took him by the hand and pulled him towards the drawing-roomdoor...! She had done an exceedingly audacious deed, and her spiritsrose as she became convinced from his demeanour that she had not pushedaudacity too far. (For she was never absolutely sure of him.)
"Wait one moment," said Mr. Prohack releasing himself and slipping backto the window.
"What's the matter?"
"I merely desired to look at the chauffeur's face. Is it a realchauffeur? Not an automaton?"
"Arthur!"
"You're sure he's quite human?" Mrs. Prohack closed the piano, and thenstamped her foot.
"Listen," said Mr. Prohack. "I'm about to trust my life to themysterious being inside that uniform. Did you imagine that I would trustmy life to a perfect stranger? In another half hour he and I may belying in hospital side by side. And I don't even know his name! Fetchhim in, my dove, and allow me to establish relations with him. Butconfide to me his name first." The expression on Mrs. Prohack's featureswas one of sublime forbearance under ineffable provocation.
"This is Carthew," she announced, bringing the chauffeur into thedrawing-room.
Carthew was a fairly tall, fairly full-bodied, grizzled man of aboutforty; he carried his cap and one gauntleted glove in one gloved hand,and his long, stiff green overcoat slanted down from his neck to hisknees in an unbroken line. He had the impassivity of a policeman.
"Good morning, Carthew," Mr. Prohack began, ri
sing. "I thought that youand I would like to make one another's acquaintance."
"Yes, sir."
Mr. Prohack held out his hand, which Carthew calmly took.
"Will you sit down?"
"Thank you, sir."
"Have a cigarette?" Carthew hesitated.
"Do you mind if I have one of my own, sir?"
"These are Virginian."
"Oh! Thank you, sir." And Carthew took a cigarette from Mr. Prohack'scase.
"Light?"
"After you, sir."
"No, no."
"Thank you, sir."
Carthew coughed, puffed, and leaned back a little in his chair. At thispoint Mrs. Prohack left the room. (She said afterwards that she left theroom because she couldn't have borne to be present when Carthew's backbroke the back of the chair.)
Carthew sat silent.
"Well," said Mr. Prohack. "What do you think of the car? I ought to tellyou I know nothing of motors myself, and this is the first one I've everhad."
"The Eagle is a very good car, sir. If you ask me I should say it waslight on tyres and a bit thirsty with petrol. It's one of them cars asanybody can _drive_--if you understand what I mean. I mean anybody canmake it _go_. But of course that's only the beginning of what I calldriving."
"Just so," agreed Mr. Prohack, drawing by his smile a very faint smilefrom Carthew. "My son seems to think it's about the best car on themarket."
"Well, sir, I've been mixed up with cars pretty well all my life--I meansince I was twenty--"
"Have you indeed!"
"I have, sir--" Carthew neatly flicked some ash on the carpet, and Mr.Prohack thoughtfully did the same--"I have, sir, and I haven't yet comeacross the best car on the market, if you understand what I mean."
"Perfectly," said Mr. Prohack.
Carthew sat silent.
"But it's a very good car. Nobody could wish for a better. I'll saythat," he added at length.
"Had many accidents in your time?"
"I've been touched, sir, but I've never touched anything myself. You canhave an accident while you're drawn up alongside the kerb. It ratherdepends on how many fools have been let loose in the traffic, doesn'tit, sir, if you understand what I mean."
"Exactly," said Mr. Prohack.
Carthew sat silent.
"I gather you've been through the war," Mr. Prohack began again.
"I was in the first Territorial regiment that landed in France, and Igot my discharge July 1919."
"Wounded?"
"Well, sir, I've been blown up twice and buried once and pitched intothe sea once, but nothing ever happened to me."
"I see you don't wear any ribbons."
"It's like this, sir. I've seen enough ribbons on chests since thearmistice. It isn't as if I was one of them conscripts."
"No," murmured Mr. Prohack thoughtfully; then brightening: "And as soonas you were discharged you went back to your old job?"
"I did and I didn't, sir. The fact is, I've been driving an ambulancefor the City of London, but as soon as I heard of something private Ichucked that. I can't say as I like these Corporations. There's a bittoo much stone wall about them Corporations, for my taste."
"Family man?" asked Mr. Prohack lightly. "I've two children myself andboth of them can drive."
"Really, sir, I am a family man, as ye might say, but my wife and me,we're best apart."
"Sorry to hear that. I didn't want to--"
"Oh, not at all, sir! That's all right. But you see--the war--me beingaway and all that--I've got the little boy. He's nine."
"Well," said Mr. Prohack, jumping up nervously, "suppose we go and havea look at the car, shall we?"
"Certainly, sir," said Carthew, throwing the end of his cigarette intothe fender, and hastening.
"My dove," said Mr. Prohack to his wife in the hall. "I congratulate youon your taste in chauffeurs. Carthew and I have laid the foundations ofa lasting friendship."
"I really wonder you asked him to smoke in the drawing-room," Mrs.Prohack critically observed.
"Why? He saved England for me; and now I'm trusting my life to him."
"I do believe you'd _like_ there to be a revolution in this country."
"Not at all, angel! And I don't think there'll be one. But I'm taking myprecautions in case there should be one."
"He's only a chauffeur."
"That's very true. He was doing some useful work, driving an ambulanceto hospitals. But we've stopped that. He's now only a chauffeur to theidle rich."
"Oh, Arthur! I wish you wouldn't try to be funny on such subjects. Youknow you don't mean it."
Mrs. Prohack was now genuinely reproachful, and the first conjugaljoy-ride might have suffered from a certain constraint had it takenplace. It did not, however, take place. Just as Carthew was holding outthe rug (which Eve's prodigious thoroughness had remembered to buy)preparatory to placing it on the knees of his employers, a trulygigantic automobile drove up to the door, its long bonnet stoppingwithin six inches of the Eagle's tail-lantern. The Eagle looked likenothing at all beside it. Mr. Prohack knew that leviathan. He had manytimes seen it in front of the portals of his principal club. It was thecar of his great club crony, Sir Paul Spinner, the "city magnate."
Sir Paul, embossed with carbuncles, got out, and was presently beingpresented to Eve,--for the friendship between Mr. Prohack and Sir Paulhad been a purely club friendship. Like many such friendships it had hadno existence beyond the club, and neither of the cronies knew anythingof real interest about the domestic circumstances of the other. Sir Paulwas very apologetic to Eve, but he imperiously desired an interview withMr. Prohack at once. Eve most agreeably and charmingly said that shewould take a little preliminary airing in the car by herself, and returnfor her husband. Mr. Prohack would have preferred her to wait for him;but, though Eve was sagacious enough at all normal times, when she gotan idea into her head that idea ruthlessly took precedence of everythingelse in the external world. Moreover the car was her private creation,and she was incapable of resisting its attractions one minute longer.
II
"I hear you've come into half a million, Arthur," said Paul Spinner,after he had shown himself very friendly and optimistic about Mr.Prohack's health and given the usual bulletin about his own carbunclesand the shortcomings of the club.
"But you don't believe it, Paul."
"I don't," agreed Paul. "Things get about pretty fast in the City and wecan size them up fairly well; and I should say, putting two and twotogether, that a hundred and fifty thousand would be nearer the mark."
"It certainly is," said Mr. Prohack.
If Paul Spinner had suggested fifty thousand, Mr. Prohack would havecorrected him, but being full of base instincts he had no impulse tocorrect the larger estimate, which was just as inaccurate.
"Well, well! It's a most romantic story and I congratulate you on it.No such luck ever happened to me." Sir Paul made this remark in a toneto indicate that he had had practically no luck himself. And he reallybelieved that he had had no luck, though the fact was that he touched noenterprise that failed. Every year he signed a huger cheque forsuper-tax, and every year he signed it with a gesture signifying that hewas signing his own ruin.
This distressing illusion of Sir Paul's was probably due to hiscarbuncles, which of all pathological phenomena are among the mostproductive of a pessimistic philosophy. The carbuncles were well knownup and down Harley Street. They were always to be cured and they neverwere cured. They must have cost their owner about as much as hismotor-car for upkeep--what with medical fees, travelling and foreignhotels--and nobody knew whether they remained uncured because they wereincurable or because the medical profession thought it would be cruel atone stroke to deprive itself of a regular income and Sir Paul of hisgreatest hobby. The strange thing was that Sir Paul with all hispowerful general sagacity and shrewdness, continued firmly, despiteendless disappointments, in the mystical faith that one day thecarbuncles would be abolished.
"I won't beat about the b
ush," said he. "We know one another. I camehere to talk frankly and I'll talk frankly."
"You go right ahead," Mr. Prohack benevolently encouraged him.
"First of all I should like to give you just the least hint of warningagainst that fellow Softly Bishop. I daresay you know something' abouthim--"
"I know nothing about him, except the way he looks down his nose. But noman who looks down his nose the way he looks down his nose is going toinfluence me in the management of my financial affairs. I'm only anofficial; I should be a lamb in the City; but I have my safeguards, oldchap. Thanks for the tip all the same."
Sir Paul Spinner laughed hoarsely, as Mr. Prohack had made him laughhundreds of times in the course of their friendship. And Mr. Prohack wasaware of a feeling of superiority to Sir Paul. The feeling grew steadilyin his breast, and he was not quite sure how it originated. Perhaps itwas due to a note of dawning obsequiousness in Sir Paul's laugh,reminding Mr. Prohack of the ancient proverb that the jokes of theexalted are always side-splitting.
"As I say," Sir Paul proceeded, "you and I know each other."
Mr. Prohack nodded, with a trace of impatience against unnecessaryrepetition. Yet he was suddenly struck with the odd thought that SirPaul certainly did not know him, but only odd bits of him; and he wasdoubtful whether he knew Sir Paul. He saw an obese man of sixty sittingin the very chair that a few moments ago had been occupied by Carthewthe chauffeur, a man with big purplish features and a liverish eye, aman smoking a plutocratic and heavenly cigar and eating it at the sametime, a man richly dressed and braided and jewelled, a man whose bootsshowed no sign of a crease, an obvious millionaire of the old type, inshort a man who was practically all prejudices and waste-products. Andhe wondered why and how that man had become his friend and won hisaffection. Sir Paul looked positively coarse in Mr. Prohack's frailChippendale drawing-room, seeming to need for suitable environment thepillared marble and gilt of the vast Club. Well, after having eaten manyhundreds of meals and drunk many hundreds of cups of coffee in thegrunting society of Sir Paul, all that Mr. Prohack could be sure ofknowing about Sir Paul was, first, that he had an absolutely unspottedreputation; second, that he was a very decent, simple-minded, kindly,ignorant fellow (ignorant, that is, in the matters that interested Mr.Prohack); third, that he instinctively mistrusted intellect andbrilliance; fourth, that for nearly four years he had been convincedthat Germany would win the war, and fifth, that he was capable ofastounding freaks of generosity. Stay, there was another item,--SirPaul's invariable courtesy to the club servants, which courtesy hesomehow contrived to combine with continual grumbling. The club servantsheld him in affection. It was probably this sixth item that outweighedany of the others in Mr. Prohack's favourable estimate of the financier.
And then Mr. Prohack, as in a dream, heard from the lips of Paul Spinnerthe words, "oil concessions in Roumania." In a flash, in an earthquake,in a blinding vision, Mr. Prohack instantaneously understood the originof his queer nascent feeling of superiority to old Paul. What he hadpreviously known subconsciously he now knew consciously. Old Paul whohad no doubt been paying in annual taxes about ten times the amount ofMr. Prohack's official annual salary; old Paul whose name was thesynonym for millions and the rumours of whose views on the stock-marketscaused the readers of financial papers to tremble; old Paul was afterMr. Prohack's money! Marvellous, marvellous, thrice marvellous money!...It was the most astounding, the most glorious thing that ever happened.Mr. Prohack immediately began to have his misgivings about Sir PaulSpinner. Simultaneously he felt sorry for old Paul. And such was hisconstraint that he made the motion of swallowing, and had all he coulddo not to blush.
Mr. Prohack might be a lamb in the City, but he had a highly trainedmind, and a very firm grasp of the mere technique of finance. ThereforeSir Paul could explain himself succinctly and precisely in technicalterms, and he did so--with much skill and a sort of unconsideredpersuasiveness, realising in his rough commonsense that there was noneed to drive ideas into Mr. Prohack's head with a steam-hammer, or tointoxicate him with a heady vapour of superlatives.
In a quarter of an hour Mr. Prohack learnt that Sir Paul was promoting astrictly private syndicate as a preliminary to the formation of a bigcompany for the exploitation of certain options on Roumanianoil-territory which Sir Paul held. He learnt about the reports of thetrial borings. He learnt about the character and the experience of theexpert whom Sir Paul had sent forth to Roumania. He learnt about theworld-supply of oil and the world-demand for oil. He learnt about thegreat rival oil-groups that were then dividing the universe of oil. Hehad the entire situation clearly mapped on his brain. Next he obtainedsome startling inside knowledge about the shortage of liquid capital inthe circles of "big money," and then followed Sir Paul's famous clubdisquisition upon the origin of the present unsaleableness of securitiesand the appalling uneasiness, not to say collapse, of markets.
"What we want is stability, old boy. We want to be left alone. We'rebeing governed to death. Social reform is all right. I believe in it,but everything depends on the pace. Change there ought to be, but itmustn't be like a transformation scene in a pantomime."
And so on.
Mr. Prohack was familiar with it all. He expected the culminating partof the exposition. But Sir Paul curved off towards the navy and the needof conserving in British hands a more than adequate gush of oil for thenavy. Mr. Prohack wished that Sir Paul could have left out the navy. Andthen the Empire was reached. Mr. Prohack wished that Sir Paul could haveleft out the Empire. Finally Sir Paul arrived at the point.
"I've realised all I can in reason and I'm eighty thousand short. Ofcourse I can get it, get it easily, but not without giving away a goodpart of my show in quarters that I should prefer to keep quite in thedark. I thought of you--you're clean outside all that sort of thing, andalso I know you'd lie low. You might make a hundred per cent; you mightmake two hundred per cent. But I'll guarantee you this--you won't lose,whatever happens. Of course your capital may not be liquid. You mayn'tbe able to get at it. I don't know. But I thought it was just worthmentioning to you, and so I said to myself I'd look in here on my way tothe City."
Sir Paul Spinner touting for a miserable eighty thousand pounds!
"Hanged if I know _how_ my capital is!" said Mr. Prohack.
"I suppose your lawyer knows. Smathe, isn't it?... I heard so."
"How soon do you want an answer, yes or no?" Mr. Prohack asked, with afeeling that he had his back to the wall and old Paul had a gun.
"I don't want an answer now, anyhow, old boy. You must think it over.You see, once we've got the thing, I shall set the two big groupsbidding against each other for it, and we shall see some fun. And Iwouldn't ask them for cash payments. Only for payment in their ownshares--which are worth more than money."
"Want an answer to-morrow?"
"Could you make it to-night?" Sir Paul surprisingly answered. "Andassuming you say yes--I only say assuming--couldn't you run down with meto Smathe's now and find out about your capital? That wouldn't bind youin any way. I'm particularly anxious you should think it over verycarefully. And, by the way, better keep these papers to refer to. But ifyou can't get at your capital, no use troubling further. That's thefirst thing to find out."
"I can't go to Smathe's now," Mr. Prohack stammered.
"Why not?"
"Because I'm going out with my wife in the car."
"But, my dear old boy, it's a big thing, and it's urgent."
"Yes, I quite see that. But I've got to go with Marian. I'll tell youwhat I can do. I'll telephone Smathe that you're coming down to see himyourself, and he must tell you everything. That'll be best. Then I'lllet you know my decision later."
As they parted, Sir Paul said:
"We know each other, and you may take it from me it's all right. I'llsay no more. However, you think it over."
"Oh! I will!"
Old Paul touting for eighty thousand pounds! A wondrous world! Astupefying world!
Mr. Prohack, who didn't kn
ow what to do with a hundred thousand pounds,saw himself the possessor of a quarter of a million, and was illogicallythrilled by the prospect. But the risk! Supposing that honest Paul waswrong for once, or suppose he was carried off in the night by acarbuncle,--Mr. Prohack might find himself a pauper with a mere trifleof twenty thousand pounds to his name.
As soon as he had telephoned he resumed his hat and coat and went out onto the pavement to look for his car, chauffeur and wife. There was not asign of them.
* * * * *
III
Mr. Prohack was undeniably a very popular man. He had few doubtsconcerning the financial soundness of old Paul's proposition; but hehesitated, for reasons unconnected with finance or with domesticity,about accepting it. And he conceived the idea (which none but a verypeculiar man would have conceived) of discussing the matter with someenemy of old Paul's. Now old Paul had few enemies. Mr. Prohack, however,could put his hand on one,--Mr. Francis Fieldfare--the editor of anold-established and lucrative financial weekly, and familiar to readersof that and other organs as "F.F." Mr. Fieldfare's offices were quiteclose to Mr. Prohack's principal club, of which Mr. Fieldfare also was amember, and Mr. Fieldfare had the habit of passing into the club aboutnoon and reading the papers for an hour, lunching early, and leaving theclub again just as the majority of the members were ordering theirafter-lunch coffee. Mr. Fieldfare pursued this course because he had adeep instinct for being in the minority. Mr. Prohack looked at hiswatch. The resolution of every man is limited in quantity. Only in madpeople is resolution inexhaustible. Mr. Prohack had no more resolutionthan becomes an average sane fellow, and his resolution to wait for hiswife had been seriously tried by the energetic refusal to go withSpinner to see Smathe. It now suddenly gave out.
"Pooh!" said Mr. Prohack. "I've waited long enough for her. She'll nowhave to wait a bit for me."
And off he went by taxi to his club. The visit, he reflected, wouldserve the secondary purpose of an inconspicuous re-entry into club-lifeafter absence from it.
He thought:
"They may have had an accident with that car. One day she's certain tohave an accident anyhow,--she's so impulsive."
Of course Mr. Fieldfare was not in the morning-room of the club as heought to have been. That was bound to happen. Mr. Prohack gazed aroundat the monumental somnolence of the great room, was ignored, and backedout into the hall, meaning to return home. But in the hall he met F.F.just arriving. It surprised and perhaps a little pained Mr. Prohack toobserve that F.F. had evidently heard neither of his illness nor of hisinheritance.
Mr. Fieldfare was a spare, middle-aged man, of apparently austere habit;short, shabby; a beautiful, resigned face, burning eyes, and a softvoice. He was weighed down, and had been weighed down for thirty years,by a sense of the threatened immediate collapse of society--of allsocieties, and by the solemn illusion that he more clearly than anybodyelse understood the fearful trend of events.
Mr. Prohack had once, during the war, remarked on seeing F.F. glance atthe tape in the Club: "Look at F.F. afraid lest there may be some goodnews." Nevertheless he liked F.F.
As editor of a financial weekly, F.F. naturally had to keep well undercontrol his world-sadness. High finance cannot prosper in an atmosphereof world-sadness, and hates it. F.F. ought never to have become theeditor of a financial weekly; but he happened to be an expertstatistician, an honest man and a courageous man, and an expert in thepathology of stock-markets, and on this score his proprietors excusedthe slight traces of world-sadness occasionally to be found in thepaper. He might have left his post and obtained another; but to beforced by fate to be editor of a financial weekly was F.F.'s chiefgrievance in life, and he loved a good grievance beyond everything.
"But, my dear fellow," said F.F. with his melancholy ardent glance, whenMr. Prohack had replied suitably to his opening question. "I'd no ideayou'd been unwell. I hope it isn't what's called a breakdown."
"Oh, no!" Mr. Prohack laughed nervously. "But you know what doctors are.A little rest has been prescribed."
F.F. gazed at him softly compassionate, as if to indicate that nothingbut trouble could be expected under the present political regime. Theyexamined the tape together.
"Things can't go on much longer like this," observed F.F.comprehensively, in front of the morning's messages from the capitals ofthe world.
"Still," said Mr. Prohack, "we've won the war, haven't we?"
"I suppose we have," said F.F. and sighed.
Mr. Prohack felt that he had no more time for preliminaries, and inorder to cut them short started some ingenious but quite inexcusablelying.
"You didn't chance to see old Paul Spinner going out as you came in?"
"No," answered F.F. "Why?"
"Nothing. Only a man in the morning-room was wanting to know if he wasstill in the Club, and I told him I'd see."
"I hear," said F.F. after a moment, and in a lower voice, "I hear he'sgetting up some big new oil scheme."
"Ah!" murmured Mr. Prohack, delighted at so favourable a coincidence,with a wonderful imitation of casualness. "And what may that be?"
"Nobody knows. Some people would give a good deal to know. But if I'many judge of my Spinner they won't know till he's licked off all thecream. It's marvellous to me how Spinner and his sort can keep ondevoting themselves to the old ambitions while the world's breaking up.Marvellous!"
"Money, you mean?"
"Personal aggrandisement."
"Well," answered Mr. Prohack, with a judicial, detached air. "I'vealways found Spinner a very decent agreeable chap."
"Oh, yes! Agreed! Agreed! They're all too confoundedly agreeable foranything, all that lot are."
"But surely he's honest?"
"Quite. As straight a man as ever breathed, especially according to hisown lights. All his enterprises are absolutely what is known as 'sound.'They all make rich people richer, and in particular they make _him_richer, though I bet even he's been feeling the pinch lately. They allhave."
"Still, I expect old Spinner desires the welfare of the country just asmuch as any one else. It's not all money with him."
"No. But did you ever know Spinner touch anything that didn't mean moneyin the first place? I never did. What he and his lot mean by the welfareof the country is the stability of the country _as it is_. They see thenecessity for development, improvement in the social scheme. Oh, yes!They see it and admit it. Then they go to church, or they commune withheaven on the golf-course, and their prayer is: 'Give us needed change,O Lord, but not just yet.'"
The pair moved to the morning-room.
"Look here," said Mr. Prohack, lightly, ignoring the earnestness inF.F.'s tone. "Supposing you had a bit of money, say eighty thousandpounds, and the chance to put it into one of old who-is-it's schemes,what would you do?"
"I should be ashamed to have eighty thousand pounds," F.F. replied withdark whispering passion. "And in any case nothing would induce me tohave any dealings with the gang."
"Are they all bad?"
"They're all bad, all! They are all anti-social. All! They are all acurse to the country and to all mankind." F.F. had already rung thebell, and he now beckoned coldly to the waitress who entered the room."Everybody who supports the present Government is guilty of a crimeagainst human progress. Bring me a glass of that brown sherry I hadyesterday--you know the one--and three small pieces of cheese."
Mr. Prohack went away to the telephone, and got Paul Spinner at Smathe'soffice.
"I only wanted to tell you that I've decided to come into your show, ifSmathe can arrange for the money. I've thought it all over carefully,and I'm yours, old boy."
He hung up the receiver immediately.
* * * * *
IV
The excursion to the club had taken longer than Mr. Prohack hadanticipated, and when he got back home it was nearly lunch-time. No signof an Eagle car or any other car in front of the house! Mr. Prohack lethimself in. The sounds of a table being
set came from the dining-room.He opened the door there. Machin met him at the door. Each withdrew fromthe other, avoiding a collision.
"Your mistress returned?"
"Yes, sir." Machin seemed to hesitate, her mind disturbed.
"Where is she?"
"I was just coming to tell you, sir. She told me to say that she waslying down."
"Oh!"
Disdaining further to interrogate the servant, he hurried upstairs. Hehad to excuse himself to Eve, and he had also to justify to her theplacing of eighty thousand pounds in a scheme which she could notpossibly understand and for which there was nothing whatever to show.She would approve, of course; she would say that she had completeconfidence in his sagacity, but all the inflections of her voice, allher gestures and glances, would indicate to him that in her opinion hewas a singularly ingenuous creature, the natural prey of sharpers, andthat the chances of their not being ruined by his incurable simplicitywere exceedingly small. His immense reputation in the Treasury, hissinister fame as the Terror of the departments, would not weigh an atomin her general judgment of the concrete case affecting the fortunes ofthe Prohack family. Then she would be brave; she would be bravelyresigned to the worst. She would kiss his innocence. She would quiteunconvincingly assure him, in her own vocabulary, that he was a devil ofa fellow and the smartest man in the world.
Further, she would draw in the horns of her secret schemes ofexpenditure. She would say that she had intended to do so-and-so and tobuy so-and-so, but that perhaps it would be better, in view of theuncertainties of destiny, neither to do nor to buy so-and-so. In short,she would succeed in conveying to him the idea that to live with him waslike being in an open boat with him adrift in the middle of the stormyAtlantic. She loved to live with him, the compensations were exquisite,and moreover what would be his fate if he were alone? Still, it was likebeing in an open boat with him adrift in the middle of the stormyAtlantic. And she would cling closer to him and point to the red sunsetting among black clouds of tempest. And this would continue until hecould throw say about a hundred and sixty thousand pounds into her lap,whereupon she would calmly assert that in her opinion he and she hadreally been safe all the while on the glassy lake of the Serpentine in asteamer.
"I ought to have thought of all that before," he said to himself. "Andif I had I should have bought houses, something for her to look at andtouch. And even then she would have suggested that if I hadn't been acoward I could have done better than houses. She would have found in_The Times_ every day instances of companies paying twenty and thirtyper cent ... No! It would have been impossible for me to invest themoney without losing her esteem for me as a man of business. I wish toheaven I hadn't got any money. So here goes!"
And he burst with assumed confidence into the bedroom. Andsimultaneously, to intensify his unease, the notion that profiteeringwas profiteering, whether in war or in peace, and the notion that F.F.was a man of lofty altruistic ideals, surged through his distractedmind.
Eve was lying on the bed. She looked very small on the bed, smaller thanusual. At the sound of the door opening she said, without moving herhead--he could not see her face from the door:
"Is that you, Arthur?"
"Yes, what's the matter?"
"Just put my cloak over my feet, will you?"
He came forward and took the cloak off a chair.
"What's the matter?" he repeated, arranging the cloak.
"I'm not hurt, dearest, I assure you I'm not--not at all." She wasspeaking in a faint, weak voice, like a little child's.
"Then you've had an accident?"
She glanced up at him sideways, timidly, compassionately, and nodded.
"You mustn't be upset. I told Machin to go on with her work and not tosay anything to you about it. I preferred to tell you myself. I know howsensitive you are where I'm concerned."
Mr. Prohack had to adjust his thoughts, somewhat violently, to the newsituation, and he made no reply; but he was very angry about the mereexistence of motor-cars. He felt that he had always had a prejudiceagainst motor-cars, and that the prejudice was not a prejudice becauseit was well-founded.
"Darling, don't look so stern. It wasn't Carthew's fault. Another carran into us. I told Carthew to drive in the Park, and we went rightround the Park in about five minutes. So as I felt sure you'd be a longtime with that fat man, I had the idea of running down to Putney--to seeSissie." Eve laughed nervously. "I thought I might possibly bring herhome with me.... After the accident Carthew put me into a taxi and Icame back. Of course he had to stay to look after the car. And then youweren't here when I arrived! Where are you going, dearest?"
"I'm going to telephone for the doctor, of course," said Mr. Prohackquietly, but very irritably.
"Oh, darling! I've sent for the doctor. He wasn't in, they said, butthey said he'd be back quite soon and then he'd come at once. I don'treally need the doctor. I only sent for him because I knew you'd be sofrightfully angry if I didn't."
Mr. Prohack had returned to the bed. He took his wife's hand.
"Feel my pulse. It's all right, isn't it?"
"I can't feel it at all."
"Oh, Arthur, you never could! I can feel your hand trembling, that'swhat I can feel. Now please don't be upset, Arthur."
"I suppose the car's smashed?"
She nodded:
"It's a bit broken."
"Where was it?"
"It was just on the other side of Putney Bridge, on the tramlinesthere."
"Carthew wasn't hurt?"
"Oh, no! Carthew was simply splendid."
"How did it happen, exactly?"
"Oh, Arthur, you with your 'exactlys'! Don't ask me. I'm too tired.Besides, I didn't see it. My eyes were shut." She closed her eyes.
Suddenly she sat up and put her hand on his shoulder, in a sort ofappeal, vaguely smiling. He tried to smile, but could not. Then her handdropped. A totally bewildered expression veiled the anxious kindness inher eyes. The blood left her face until her cheeks were nearly as whiteas the embroidered cloth on the night-table. Her eyes closed. She fellback. She had fainted. She was just as if dead. Her hand was as cold asthe hand of a corpse.
Such was Mr. Prohack's vast experience of life that he had not the leastidea what to do in this crisis. But he tremendously regretted thatAngmering, Bishop, and the inventor of the motor-car had ever been born.He rushed out on to the landing and loudly shouted: "Machin! Machin!Ring up that d----d doctor again, and if he can't come ring up Dr. Plottat once."
"Yes, sir. Yes, sir."
He rushed back into the bedroom, discovered Eve's smelling-salts, andheld them to her nose. Already the blood was mounting again.
"Well, she's not dead, anyway!" he said to himself grimly.
He could see the blood gently mounting, mounting. It was a wonderful, amysterious and a reassuring sight.
"I don't care so long as she isn't injured internally," he said tohimself.
Eve opened her eyes in a dazed look. Then she grinned as ifapologetically. Then she cried copiously.
Mr. Prohack heard a car outside. It was Dr. Veiga's. The mere sound ofDr. Veiga's car soothed Mr. Prohack, accused him of losing his head, andmade a man of him.
Dr. Veiga entered the bedroom in exactly the same style as on his firstvisit to Mr. Prohack himself. He had heard the nature of the case fromMachin on his way upstairs. He listened to Mr. Prohack, who spoke, inthe most deceitful way, as if he had been through scores of suchaffairs.
"Exactly," said Dr. Veiga, examining Eve summarily. "She sat up. Theblood naturally left her head, and she fainted. Fainting is nothing buta withdrawing of blood from the head. Will you ring for that servant ofyours, please?"
"I'm positive I'm quite all right, Doctor," Eve murmured.
"Will you kindly not talk," said he. "If you're so positive you're allright, why did you send for me? Did you walk upstairs? Then your legsaren't broken, at least not seriously." He laughed softly.
But shortly afterwards, when Mr. Prohack, admirably disse
mbling hispurposes, crept with dignity out of the room, Dr. Veiga followed him,and shut the door, leaving Machin busy within.
"I don't think that there is any internal lesion," said Dr. Veiga, withseriousness. "But I will not yet state absolutely. She has had a verysevere shock and her nerves are considerably jarred."
"But it's nothing physical?"
"My dear sir, of course it's physical. Do you conceive the nerves arenot purely physical organs? I can't conceive them as anything butphysical organs. Can you?"
Mr. Prohack felt schoolboyish.
"It's you that she's upset about, though. Did you notice she motioned meto give you some of the brandy she was taking? Very sweet of her, was itnot?... What are you going to do now?"
"I'm going to fetch my daughter."
"Excellent. But have something before you go. You may not know it, butyou have been using up nervous tissue, which has to be replaced."
As he was driving down to Putney in a taxi, Mr. Prohack certainly didfeel very tired. But he was not so tired as not to insist on helping theengine of the taxi. He pushed the taxi forward with all his might allthe way to Putney. He pushed it till his arms ached, though his handswere in his pockets. The distance to Putney had incomprehensiblystretched to nine hundred and ninety-nine miles.
He found Sissie in the studio giving a private lesson to a middle-agedgentleman who ought, Mr. Prohack considered, to have been thinking ofhis latter end rather than of dancing. He broke up the lesson veryabruptly.
"Your mother has had a motor accident. You must come at once."
Sissie came.
"Then it must have been about here," said she, as the taxi approachedPutney Bridge on the return journey.
So it must. He certainly had not thought of the _locus_ of the accident.He had merely pictured it, in his own mind, according to his ownfrightened fancy. Yes, it must have been just about there. And yet therewas no sign of it in the roadway. Carthew must have had the woundedEagle removed. Mr. Prohack sat stern and silent. A wondrous woman, hiswife! Absurd, possibly, about such matters as investments; but anangel! Her self-forgetfulness, her absorption in _him_,--staggering! Theaccident was but one more proof of it. He was greatly alarmed about her,for the doctor had answered for nothing. He seemed to have a thousandworries. He had been worried all his life, but the worries that hadformed themselves in a trail to the inheritance were worse worries thanthe old simple ones. No longer did the thought of the inheritancebrighten his mind. He somehow desired to go back to former days.Glancing askance at Sissie, he saw that she too was stern. He resumedthe hard pushing of the taxi. It was not quite so hard as before,because he knew that Sissie also was pushing her full share.