EVE'S MARTYRDOM
I
After a magnificent night's sleep, so magnificent indeed that he felt as
if he had never until that moment really grasped the full significance
of the word "sleep," Mr. Prohack rang the bell for his morning tea. Of
late he had given orders that he must not under any circumstances be
called, for it had been vouchsafed to him that in spite of a multitude
of trained servants there were still things that he could do for himself
better than anybody else could do for him, and among them was the act of
waking up Mr. Prohack. He knew that he was in a very good humour,
capable of miracles, and he therefore determined that he would seize the
opportunity to find the human side of Mr. Brool and make a friend of
him. But the tea-tray was brought in by Mrs. Prohack, who was completely
and severely dressed. She put down the tray and kissed her husband not
as usual, but rather in the manner of a Roman matron, and Mr. Prohack
divined that something had happened.
"I hope Brool hasn't dropped down dead," said he, realising the
foolishness of his facetiousness as he spoke.
Eve seemed to be pained.
"Have you slept better?" she asked, solicitous.
"I have slept so well that there's probably something wrong with me,"
said he. "Heavy sleep is a symptom of several dangerous diseases."
"I'm glad you've had a good night," she began, again ignoring his
maladroit flippancy, "because I want to talk to you."
"Darling," he responded. "Pour out my tea for me, will you? Then I shall
be equal to any strain. I trust that you also passed a fair night,
madam. You look tremendously fit."
Visions of Lady Massulam flitted through his mind, but he decided that
Eve, seriously pouring out tea for him under the lamp in the morning
twilight of the pale bedroom, could not be matched by either Lady
Massulam or anybody else. No, he could not conceive a Lady Massulam
pouring out early tea; the Lady Massulams could only pour out afternoon
tea--a job easier to do with grace and satisfaction.
"I have not slept a wink all night," said Eve primly. "But I was
determined that nothing should induce me to disturb you."
"Yes?" Mr. Prohack encouraged her, sipping the first glorious sip.
"Well, will you believe me that Sissie slipped out last night after
dinner without saying a word to me or any one, and that she didn't come
back and hasn't come back? I sat up for her till three o'clock--I
telephoned to Charlie, but no! he'd seen nothing of her."
"Did you telephone to Ozzie?"
"Telephone to Ozzie, my poor boy! Of course I didn't. I wouldn't have
Ozzie know for anything. Besides, he isn't on the telephone at his
flat."
"That's a good reason for not telephoning, anyway," said Mr. Prohack.
"But did you ever hear of such a thing? The truth is, you've spoilt that
child."
"I may have spoilt the child," Mr. Prohack admitted. "But I have heard
of such a thing. I seem to remember that in the dear dead days of
dancing studios, something similar occurred to your daughter."
"Yes, but we did know where she was."
"You didn't. I did," Mr. Prohack corrected her.
"Do you want me to cry?" Eve demanded suddenly.
"Yes," said Mr. Prohack. "I love to see you cry."
Eve pursed her lips and wrinkled her brows and gazed at the window,
performing great feats of self-control under extreme provocation to lose
her temper.
"What do you propose to do?" she asked with formality.
"Wait till the girl comes back," said Mr. Prohack.
"Arthur! I really cannot understand how you can take a thing like this
so casually! No, I really can't!"
"Neither can I!" Mr. Prohack admitted, quite truthfully.
He saw that he ought to have been gravely upset by Sissie's prank and he
was merely amused. "Effect of too much sleep, no doubt," he added.
Eve walked about the room.
"I pretended to Machin this morning that Sissie had told me that she was
sleeping out, and that I had forgotten to tell Machin. It's a good thing
we haven't engaged lady's maids yet. I can trust Machin. I know she
didn't believe me this morning, but I can trust her. You see, after
Sissie's strange behaviour these last few days.... One doesn't know what
to think. And there's something else. Every morning for the last three
or four weeks Sissie's gone out somewhere, for an hour or two, quite
regularly. And where she went I've never been able to find out. Of
course with a girl like her it doesn't do to ask too direct
questions.... Ah! I should like to have seen my mother in my place. I
know what she'd have done!"
"What would your mother have done? She always seemed to me to be a
fairly harmless creature."
"Yes, to you!... Do you think we ought to inform the police!"
"No!"
"I'm so glad. The necklace and Sissie coming on top of each other! No,
it would be too much!"
"It never rains but it pours, does it?" observed Mr. Prohack.
"But what _are_ we to do?"
"Just what your mother would have done. Your mother would have argued
like this: Either Sissie is staying away against her will or she is
staying away of her own accord. If the former, it means an accident, and
we are bound to hear shortly from one of the hospitals. If the latter,
we can only sit tight. Your mother had a vigorous mind and that is how
she would have looked at things."
"I never know how to take you, Arthur," said Mrs. Prohack, and went on:
"And what makes it all the more incomprehensible is that yesterday
afternoon Sissie went with me to Jay's to see about the wedding-dress."
"But why should that make it all the more incomprehensible?"
"Don't you think it does, somehow? I do."
"Did she giggle at Jay's?"
"Oh, no! Except once. Yes, I think she giggled once. That was when the
fitter said she hoped we should give them plenty of time, because most
customers rushed them so. I remember thinking how queer it was that
Sissie should laugh so much at a perfectly simple remark like that. Oh!
Arthur!"
"Now, my child," said Mr. Prohack firmly. "Don't get into your head that
Sissie has gone off hers. Yesterday you thought for quite half an hour
that I was suffering from incipient lunacy. Let that suffice you for the
present. Be philosophical. The source of tranquillity is within.
Remember that, and remind me of it too, because I'm apt to forget it....
We can do nothing at the moment. I will now get up, and I warn you that
I shall want a large breakfast and you to pour out my coffee and read
the interesting bits out of _The Daily Picture_ to me."
At eleven o'clock of the morning the _status quo_ was still maintaining
itself within the noble mansion at Manchester Square. Mr. Prohack,
washed, dressed, and amply fed, was pretending to be very busy with
correspondence in his study, but he was in fact much more busy with Eve
than with the correspondence. She came in to him every few minutes, and
each time needed more delicate handling. After one visit Mr. Prohack had
an idea. He transferred the key from the inside to the outside of the
door. At the next visit Eve presented an ultimatum. She said that Mr.
Prohack must positively do something about his daughter. Mr. Prohack
replied that he would telephone to his solicitors: a project which
happily commended itself to Eve, though what his solicitors could do
except charge a fee Mr. Prohack could not imagine.
"You wait here," said he persuasively.
He then left the room and silently locked the door on Eve. It was a
monstrous act, but Mr. Prohack had slept too well and was too fully
inspired by the instinct of initiative. He hurried downstairs, ignoring
Brool, who was contemplating the grandeur of the entrance hall, snatched
his overcoat, hat, and umbrella from the seventeenth-century panelled
cupboard in which these articles were kept, and slipped away into the
Square, before Brool could even open the door for him. As he fled he
glanced up at the windows of his study, fearful lest Eve might have
divined his purpose to abandon her and, catching sight of him in flight,
might begin making noises on the locked door. But Eve had not divined
his purpose.
Mr. Prohack walked straight to Bruton Street, where Oswald Morfey's
Japanese flat was situated. Mr. Prohack had never seen this flat, though
his wife and daughter had been invited to it for tea--and had returned
therefrom with excited accounts of its exquisite uniqueness. He had
decided that his duty was to inform Ozzie of the mysterious
disappearance of Sissie as quickly as possible; and, as Ozzie's
theatrical day was not supposed to begin until noon, he hoped to catch
him before his departure to the beck and call of the mighty Asprey
Chown.
The number in Bruton Street indicated a tall, thin house with four
bell-pushes and four narrow brass-plates on its door-jamb. The deceitful
edifice looked at a distance just like its neighbours, but, as the array
on the door-jamb showed, it had ceased to be what it seemed, the home of
a respectable Victorian family in easy circumstances, and had become a
Georgian warren for people who could reconcile themselves to a common
staircase provided only they might engrave a sound West End address on
their notepaper. The front-door was open, disclosing the reassuring fact
that the hall and staircase were at any rate carpeted. Mr. Prohack rang
the bell attached to Ozzie's name, waited, rang again, waited, and then
marched upstairs. Perhaps Ozzie was shaving. Not being accustomed to the
organisation of tenements in fashionable quarters, Mr. Prohack was
unaware that during certain hours of the day he was entitled to ring the
housekeeper's bell, on the opposite door-jamb, and to summon help from
the basement.
As he mounted it the staircase grew stuffier and stuffier, but the
condition of the staircarpet improved. Mr. Prohack hated the place, and
at once determined to fight powerfully against Sissie's declared
intention of starting married life in her husband's bachelor-flat, for
the sake of economy. He would force the pair, if necessary, to accept
from him a flat rent-free, or he would even purchase for them one of
those bijou residences of which he had heard tell. He little dreamed
that this very house had once been described as a bijou residence. The
third floor landing was terribly small and dark, and Mr. Prohack could
scarcely decipher the name of his future son-in-law on the shabby
name-plate.
"This den would be dear at elevenpence three farthings a year," said he
to himself, and was annoyed because for months he had been picturing the
elegant Oswald as the inhabitant of something orientally and impeccably
luxurious, and he wondered that his women, as a rule so critical, had
breathed no word of the flat's deplorable approaches.
He rang the bell, and the bell made a violent and horrid sound, which
could scarcely fail to be heard throughout the remainder of the house.
No answer! Ozzie had gone. He descended the stairs, and on the
second-floor landing saw an old lady putting down a mat in front of an
open door. The old lady's hair was in curl-papers.
"I suppose," he ventured, raising his hat. "I suppose you don't happen
to know whether Mr. Morfey has gone out?"
The old lady scanned him before replying.
"He can't be gone out," she answered. "He's just been sweeping his floor
enough to wake the dead."
"Sweeping his floor!" exclaimed Mr. Prohack, shocked, thunderstruck. "I
understood these were service flats."
"So they are--in a way, but the housekeeper never gets up to this floor
before half past twelve; so it can't be the housekeeper. Besides, she's
gone out for me."
"Thank you," said Mr. Prohack, and remounted the staircase. His blood
was up. He would know the worst about the elegant Oswald, even if he had
to beat the door down. He was, however, saved from this extreme measure,
for when he aimlessly pushed against Oswald's door it opened.
He beheld a narrow passage, which in the matter of its decoration
certainly did present a Japanese aspect to Mr. Prohack, who, however,
had never been to Japan. Two doors gave off the obscure corridor. One of
these doors was open, and in the doorway could be seen the latter half
of a woman and the forward half of a carpet-brush. She was evidently
brushing the carpet of a room and gradually coming out of the room and
into the passage. She wore a large blue pinafore apron, and she was so
absorbed in her business that the advent of Mr. Prohack passed quite
unnoticed by her. Mr. Prohack waited. More of the woman appeared, and at
last the whole of her. She felt, rather than saw, the presence of a man
at the entrance, and she looked up, transfixed. A deep blush travelled
over all her features.
"How clever of you!" she said, with a fairly successful effort to be
calm.
"Good morning, my child," said Mr. Prohack, with a similar and equally
successful effort. "So you're cleaning Mr. Morfey's flat for him."
"Yes. And not before it needed it. Do come in and shut the door." Mr.
Prohack obeyed, and Sissie shed her pinafore apron. "Now we're quite
private. I think you'd better kiss me. I may as well tell you that I'm
fearfully happy--much more so than I expected to be at first."
Mr. Prohack again obeyed, and when he kissed his daughter he had an
almost entirely new sensation. The girl was far more interesting to him
than she had ever been. Her blush thrilled him.
"You might care to glance at that," said Sissie, with an affectation of
carelessness, indicating a longish, narrowish piece of paper covered
with characters in red and black, which had been affixed to the wall of
the passage with two pins. "We put it there--at least I did--to save
trouble."
Mr. Prohack scanned the document. It began: "This is to certify--" and
it was signed by a "Registrar of births, deaths, and marriages."
"Yesterday, eh?" he ejaculated.
"Yes. Yesterday, at two o'clock. _Not_ at St George's and _not_ at St
Nicodemus's.... Well, you can say what you like, dad--"
"I'm not aware of having said anything yet," Mr. Prohack put in.
"You can say what you like, but what _did_ you expect me to do? It was
necessary to bring home to some people that this is the twentieth
century, not the nineteenth, and I think I've done it. And anyway what
are you going to do about it? Did you seriously suppose that I--_I_--was
going through all the orange-blossom rigmarole, voice that breathed o'er
Eden, fully choral, red carpet on the pavement, flowers, photographers,
vicar, vestry, _Daily Picture_, reception, congratulations, rice, old
shoes, going-away dress, 'Be kind to her, Ozzie.' Not much! And I don't
think. They say that girls love it and insist on it. Well, I don't, and
I know some others who don't, too. I think it's simply barbaric, worse
than a public funeral. Why, to my mind it's Central African; and that's
all there is to it. So there!" She laughed.
"Well," said Mr. Prohaek, holding his hat in his hand. "I'm a tolerably
two-faced person myself, but for sheer heartless duplicity I give you
the palm. You can beat me. Has it occurred to you that this dodge of
yours will cost you about fifty per cent of the wedding presents you
might otherwise have had?"
"It has," said Sissie. "That was one reason why we tried the dodge.
Nothing is more horrible than about fifty per cent of the wedding
presents that brides get in these days. And we've had the two finest
presents anybody could wish for."
"Oh?"
"Yes, Ozzie gave me Ozzie, and I gave him me."
"I suppose the idea was yours?"
"Of course. Didn't I tell you yesterday that Ozzie's only function at my
wedding was to be indispensable. He was very much afraid at first when I
started on the scheme, but he soon warmed up to it. I'll give him credit
for seeing that secrecy was the only thing. If we'd announced it
beforehand, we should have been bound to be beaten. You see that
yourself, don't you, dearest? And after all, it's our affair and nobody
else's."
"That's just where you're wrong," said Mr. Prohack grandly. "A marriage,
even yours, is an affair of the State's. It concerns society. It is full
of reactions on society. And society has been very wise to invest it
with solemnity--and a certain grotesque quality. All solemnities are a
bit grotesque, and so they ought to be. All solemnities ought to produce
self-consciousness in the performers. As things are, you'll be ten years
in convincing yourself that you're really a married woman, and till the
day of your death, and afterwards, society will have an instinctive
feeling that there's something fishy about you, or about Ozzie. And it's
your own fault."
"Oh, dad! What a fraud you are!" And the girl smiled. "You know
perfectly well that if you'd been in my place, and had had the
pluck--which you wouldn't have had--you'd have done the same."
"I should," Mr. Prohack immediately admitted. "Because I always want to
be smarter than other people. It's a cheap ambition. But I should have
been wrong. And I'm exceedingly angry with you and I'm suffering from a
sense of outrage, and I should not be at all surprised if all is over
between us. The thing amounts to a scandal, and the worst of it is that
no satisfactory explanation of it can ever be given to the world. If
your Ozzie is up, produce him, and I'll talk to him as he's never been
talked to before. He's the elder, he's a man, and he's the most to
blame."
"Take your overcoat off," said Sissie laughing and kissing him again.
"And don't you dare to say a word to Ozzie. Besides, he isn't in. He's
gone off to business. He always goes at eleven-thirty punctually."
There was a pause.
"Well," said Mr. Prohack. "All I wish to state is that if you had a
feather handy, you could knock me down with it."
"I can see all over your face," Sissie retorted, "that you're so pleased
and relieved you don't know what to do with yourself."
Mr. Prohack perfunctorily denied this, but it was true. His relief that
the wedding lay behind instead of in front of him was immense, and his
spirits rose even higher than they had been when he first woke up. He
loathed all ceremonies, and the prospect of having to escort an
orange-blossom-laden young woman in an automobile to a fashionable
church, and up the aisle thereof, and raise his voice therein, and make
a present of her to some one else, and breathe sugary nothings to a
thousand gapers at a starchy reception,--this prospect had increasingly
become a nightmare to him. Often had he dwelt on it in a condition
resembling panic. And now he felt genuinely grateful to his inexcusable
daughter for her shameless effrontery. He desired greatly to do
something very handsome indeed for her and her excellent tame husband.
"Step in and see my home," she said.
The home consisted of two rooms, one of them a bedroom and the other a
sitting-room, together with a small bathroom that was as dark and dank
as a cell of the Spanish Inquisition, and another apartment which he
took for a cupboard, but which Sissie authoritatively informed him was a
kitchen. The two principal rooms were beyond question beautifully
Japanese in the matter of pictures, prints and cabinets--not otherwise.
They showed much taste; they were unusual and stimulating and jolly and
refined; but Mr. Prohack did not fancy that he personally could have
lived in them with any striking success. The lack of space, of light,
and of air outweighed all considerations of charm and originality; the
upper staircase alone would have ruined any flat for Mr. Prohack.
"Isn't it lovely!" Sissie encouraged him.
"Yes, it is," he said feebly. "Got any servants yet?"
"Oh! We can't have servants. No room for them to sleep, and I couldn't
stand charwomen. You see, it's a service flat, so there's really nothing
to do."
"So I noticed when I came in," said Mr. Prohack. "And I suppose you
intend to eat at restaurants. Or do they send up meals from the cellar?"
"We shan't go to restaurants," Sissie replied. "You may be sure of that.
Too expensive for us. And I don't count much on the cookery downstairs.
No! I shall do the cooking in a chaffing-dish--here it is, you see. I've
been taking lessons in chafing-dish cookery every day for weeks, and
it's awfully amusing, it is really. And it's much better than ordinary
cooking, and cheaper too. Ozzie loves it."
Mr. Prohack was touched, and more than ever determined to "be generous
in the grand manner and start the simple-minded couple in married life
on a scale befitting the general situation.
"You'll soon be clearing out of this place, I expect," he began
cautiously.
"Clearing out!" Sissie repeated. "Why should we? We've got all we need.
We haven't the slightest intention of trying to live as you live.
Ozzie's very prudent, I'm glad to say, and so am I. We're going to save
hard for a few years, and then we shall see how things are."
"But you can't possibly stay on living in a place like this!" Mr.
Prohack protested, smiling diplomatically to soften the effect of his
words.
"Who can't?"
"You can't."
"But when you say me, do you mean your daughter or Ozzie's wife?
Ozzie's lived here for years, and he's given lots of parties
here--tea-parties, of course."
Mr. Prohack paused, perceiving that he had put himself in the wrong.
"This place is perfectly respectable," Sissie continued, "and supposing
you hadn't got all that money from America or somewhere," she persisted,
"would you have said that I couldn't 'possibly go on living in a place
like this?'" She actually imitated his superior fatherly tone. "You'd
have been only too pleased to see me living in a place like this."
Mr. Prohack raised both arms on high.
"All right," said the young spouse, absurdly proud of her position.
"I'll let you off with your life this time, and you can drop your arms
again. But if anybody had told me that you would come here and make a
noise like a plutocrat I wouldn't have believed it. Still, I'm
frightfully fond of you and I know you'd do anything for me, and you're
nearly as much of a darling as Ozzie, but you mustn't be a rich man when
you call on me here. I couldn't bear it twice."
"I retire in disorder, closely pursued by the victorious enemy," said
Mr. Prohack. And in so saying he accurately described the situation. He
had been more than defeated--he had been exquisitely snubbed. And yet
the singular creature was quite pleased. He looked at the young girl, no
longer his and no longer a girl either, set in the midst of a japanned
and lacquered room that so resembled Ozzie in its daintiness; he saw the
decision on her brow, the charm in her eyes, and the elegance in her
figure and dress, and he came near to bursting with pride. "She's got
character enough to beat even me," he reflected contentedly, thus
exhibiting an ingenuousness happily rare among fathers of brilliant
daughters. And even the glimpse of the cupboard kitchen, where the
washing-up after a chafing-dish breakfast for two had obviously not yet
been accomplished--even this touch seemed only to intensify the moral
and physical splendour of his child in her bridal setting.
"At the same time," he added to the admission of defeat, "I seem to have
a sort of idea that lately you've been carrying on rather like a
plutocrat's daughter."
"That was only my last fling," she replied, quite unperturbed.
"I see," said Mr. Prohack musingly. "Now as regards my wedding present
to you. Am I permitted to offer any gift, or is it forbidden? Of course
with all my millions I couldn't hope to rival the gift which Ozzie gave
you, but I might come in a pretty fair second, mightn't I?"
"Dad," said she. "I must leave all that to your good taste. I'm sure
that it won't let you make any attack on our independence."
"Supposing that I were to find some capital for Ozzie to start in
business for himself as a theatrical manager? He must know a good deal
about the job by this time."
Sissie shook her delicious head.
"No, that would be plutocratic. And you see I've only just married
Ozzie. I don't know anything about him yet. When I do, I shall come and
talk to you. While you're waiting I wish you'd give me some crockery.
One breakfast cup isn't quite enough for two people, after the first
day. I saw a set of things in a shop in Oxford Street for £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.
III
He was considerably dashed on his return home, to find the door of his
study still locked on the outside. The gesture which on his leaving the
room seemed so natural, brilliant and excusable, now presented itself to
him as the act of a coarse-minded idiot. He hesitated to unlock the
door, but of course he had to unlock it. Eve sat as if at the stake,
sublime.
"Arthur, why do you play these tricks on me--and especially when we are
in such trouble?"
Why did he, indeed?
"I merely didn't want you to run after me," said he. "I made sure of
course that you'd ring the bell at once and have the door opened."
"Did you imagine for a moment that I would let any of the servants know
that you'd locked me in a room? No! You couldn't have imagined that.
I've too much respect for your reputation in this house to do such a
thing, and you ought to know it."
"My child," said Mr. Prohack, once again amazed at Eve's extraordinary
gift for putting him in the wrong, and for making him still more wrong
when he was wrong. "This is the second time this morning that I've had
to surrender to overwhelming force. Name your own terms of peace. But
let me tell you in extenuation that I've discovered your offspring. The
fact is, I got her in one."
"Where is she?" Eve asked, not eagerly, rather negligently, for she was
now more distressed about her husband's behaviour than about Sissie.
"At Ozzie's." As soon as he had uttered the words Mr. Prohack saw his
wife's interest fly back from himself to their daughter.
"What's she doing at Ozzie's?"
"Well, she's living with him. They were married yesterday. They thought
they'd save you and me and themselves a lot of trouble.... But, look
here, my child, it's not a tragedy. What's the matter with you?"
Eve's face was a mask of catastrophe. She did not cry. The affair went
too deep for tears.
"I suppose I shall have to forgive Sissie--some day; but I've never been
so insulted in my life. Never! And never shall I forget it! And I've no
doubt that you and Sissie treated it all as a great piece of fun. You
would!"
The poor lady had gone as pale as ivory. Mr. Prohack was astonished--he
even felt hurt--that he had not seen the thing from Eve's point of view
earlier. Emphatically it did amount to an insult for Eve, to say naught
of the immense desolating disappointment to her. And yet Sissie,
princess among daughters, had not shown by a single inflection of her
voice that she had any sympathy with her mother, or any genuine
appreciation of what the secret marriage would mean to her. Youth was
incredibly cruel; and age too, in the shape of Mr. Prohack himself, had
not been much less cruel.
"Something's happened about that necklace since you left," said Eve, in
a dull, even voice.
"Oh! What?"
"I don't know. But I saw Mr. Crewd the detective drive up to the house
at a great pace. Then Brool came and knocked here, and as I didn't care
to have to tell him that the door was locked, I kept quiet and he went
away again. Mr. Crewd went away too. I saw him drive away."
Mr. Prohack said nothing audible, but to himself he said: "She actually
choked off her curiosity about the necklace so as not to give me away!
There could never have been another woman like her in the whole history
of human self-control! She's prodigious!"
And then he wondered what could have happened in regard to the necklace.
He foresaw more trouble there. And the splendour of the morning had
faded. An appalling silence descended upon the whole house. To escape
from its sinister spell Mr. Prohack departed and sought the seclusion of
his secondary club, which he had not entered for a very long time. (He
dared not face the lively amenities of his principal club.) He
pretended, at the secondary club, that he had never ceased to frequent
the place regularly, and to that end he put on a nonchalant air; but he
was somewhat disconcerted to find, from the demeanour of his
acquaintances there, that he positively had not been missed to any
appreciable extent. He decided that the club was a dreary haunt, and
could not understand why he had never before perceived its dreariness.
The members seemed to be scarcely alive; and in particular they seemed
to have conspired together to behave and talk as though humanity
consisted of only one sex,--their own. Mr. Prohack, worried though he
was by a too acute realisation of the fact that humanity did indeed
consist of two sexes, despised the lot of them. And yet simultaneously
the weaker part of him envied them, and he fully admitted, in the
abstract, that something might convincingly be said in favour of
monasteries. It was a most strange experience.
After a desolating lunch of excellent dishes, perfect coffee which left
a taste in his mouth, and a fine cigar which he threw away before it was
half finished, he abandoned the club and strolled in the direction of
Manchester Square. But he lacked the courage to go into the noble
mansion, and feebly and aimlessly proceeded northward until he arrived
at Marylebone Road and saw the great historic crimson building of Madame
Tussaud's Waxworks. His mood was such that he actually, in a wild and
melancholy caprice, paid money to enter this building and enquired at
once for the room known as the Chamber of Horrors.... When he emerged
his gloom had reached the fantastic, hysteric, or giggling stage, and
his conception of the all-embracingness of London was immensely
enlarged.
"Miss Sissie and Mr. Morfey are with Mrs. Prohack, sir," said Brool, in
a quite ordinary tone, taking the hat and coat of his returned master in
the hall of the noble mansion.
Mr. Prohack started.
"Give me back my hat and coat," said he. "Tell your mistress that I may
not be in for dinner." And he fled.
He could not have assisted at the terrible interview between Eve and the
erring daughter who had inveigled her own betrothed into a premature
marriage. Sissie at any rate had pluck, and she must also have had an
enormous moral domination over Ozzie to have succeeded in forcing him
to join her in a tragic scene. What a honeymoon! To what a pass had
society come! Mr. Prohack drove straight to the Monument, and paid more
money for the privilege of climbing it. He next visited the Tower. The
day seemed to consist of twenty-four thousand hours. He dined at the
Trocadero Restaurant, solitary at a table under the shadow of the bass
fiddle of the orchestra; and finally he patronised Maskelyne and Cook's
entertainment, and witnessed the dissipation of solid young women into
air. He reached home, as it was humorously called, at ten thirty.
"Mrs. Prohack has retired for the night, sir," said Brool, who never
permitted his employers merely to go to bed, "and wishes not to be
disturbed."
"Thank God!" breathed Mr. Prohack.
"Yes, sir," said Brool, dutifully acquiescent.
IV
The next morning Eve behaved to her husband exactly as if nothing
untoward had happened. She kissed and was kissed. She exhibited
sweetness without gaiety, and a general curiosity without interest. She
said not a word concerning the visit of Sissie and Ozzie. She expressed
the hope that Mr. Prohack had had a pleasant evening and slept well. Her
anxiety to be agreeable to Mr. Prohack was touching,--it was angelic. To
the physical eye all was as usual, but Mr. Prohack was aware that in a
single night she had built a high and unscalable wall between him and
her; a wall which he could see through and which he could kiss through,
but which debarred him utterly from her. And yet what sin had he
committed against her, save the peccadillo of locking her for an hour or
two in a comfortable room? It was Sissie, not he, who had committed the
sin. He wanted to point this out to Eve, but he appreciated the entire
futility of doing so and therefore refrained. About eleven o'clock Eve
knocked at and opened his study door.
"May I come in--or am I disturbing you?" she asked brightly.
"Don't be a silly goose," said Mr. Prohack, whose rising temper--he
hated angels--was drowning his tact. Smiling as though he had thrown her
a compliment, Eve came in, and shut the door.
"I've just received this," she said. "It came by messenger." And she
handed him a letter signed with the name of Crewd, the private
detective. The letter ran: "Madam, I beg to inform you that I have just
ascertained that the driver of taxi No. 5437 has left at New Scotland
Yard a pearl necklace which he found in his vehicle. He states that he
drove a lady and gentleman from your house to Waterloo Station on the
evening of your reception, but can give no description of them. I
mention the matter _pro forma_, but do not anticipate that it can
interest you as the police authorities at New Scotland Yard declare the
pearls to be false. Yours obediently.... P.S. I called upon you in order
to communicate the above facts yesterday, but you were not at home."
Mr. Prohack turned a little pale, and his voice trembled as he said,
looking up from the letter:
"I wonder who the thief was. Anyhow, women are staggering. Here some
woman--I'm sure it was the woman and not the man--picks up a necklace
from the floor of one of your drawing-rooms, well knowing it not to be
her own, hides it, makes off with it, and then is careless enough to
leave it in a taxi! Did you ever hear of such a thing?"
"But that wasn't my necklace, Arthur!" said Eve.
"Of course it was your necklace," said Mr. Prohack.
"Do you mean to tell me--" Eve began, and it was a new Eve.
"Of course I do!" said Mr. Prohack, who had now thoroughly subdued his
temper in the determination to bring to a head that trouble about the
necklace and end it for ever. He was continuing his remarks when the
wall suddenly fell down with an unimaginable crash. Eve said nothing,
but the soundless crash deafened Mr. Prohack. Nevertheless the mere fact
that Sissie's wedding lay behind and not before him, helped him somewhat
to keep his spirits and his nerve.
"I will never forgive you, Arthur!" said Eve with the most solemn and
terrible candour. She no longer played a part; she was her formidable
self, utterly unmasked and savagely expressive without any regard to
consequences. Mr. Prohack saw that he was engaged in a mortal duel, with
the buttons off the deadly foils.
"Of course you won't," said he, gathering himself heroically together,
and superbly assuming a calm which he did not in the least feel. "Of
course you won't, because there is nothing to forgive. On the contrary,
you owe me your thanks. I never deceived you. I never told you the
pearls were genuine. Indeed I beg to remind you that I once told you
positively that I would never buy you a _pearl_ necklace,--don't you
remember? You thought they were genuine, and you have had just as much
pleasure out of them as if they had been genuine. You were always
careless with your jewellery. Think how I should have suffered if I had
watched you every day being careless with a rope of genuine pearls! I
should have had no peace of mind. I should have been obliged to reproach
you, and as you can't bear to be reproached you would have picked
quarrels with me. Further, you have lost nothing in prestige, for the
reason that all our friends and acquaintances have naturally assumed
that the pearls were genuine because they were your pearls and you were
the wife of a rich man. A woman whose husband's financial position is
not high and secure is bound to wear real pearls because people will
_assume_ that her pearls are false. But a woman like yourself can wear
any pinchbeak pearls with impunity because people _assume_ that her
pearls are genuine. In your case there could be no advantage whatever in
genuine pearls. To buy them would be equivalent to throwing money in the
street. Now, as it is, I have saved money over the pearls, and therefore
interest on money, though I did buy you the very finest procurable
imitations! And think, my child, how relieved you are now,--oh, yes! you
are, so don't pretend the contrary: I can deceive you, but you can't
deceive me. You have no grievance whatever. You have had many hours of
innocent satisfaction in your false jewels, and nobody is any the worse.
Indeed my surpassing wisdom in the choice of a necklace has saved you
from all further worry about the loss of the necklace, because it simply
doesn't matter either one way or the other, and I say I defy you to
stand there and tell me to my face that you have any grievance at all."
Mr. Prohack paused for a reply, and he got it.
"I will never forgive you as long as I live," said Eve. "Let us say no
more about it. What time is that awful lunch that you've arranged with
that dreadful Bishop man? And what would you like me to wear, please?"
In an instant she had rebuilt the wall, higher than ever.
Mr. Prohack, always through the wall, took her in his arms and kissed
her. But he might as well have kissed a woman in a trance. All that
could be said was that Eve submitted to his embrace, and her attitude
was another brilliant illustration of the fact that the most powerful
oriental tyrants can be defied by their weakest slaves, provided that
the weakest slaves know how to do it.
"You are splendid!" said Mr. Prohack, admiringly, conscious anew of his
passion for her and full of trust in the virtue of his passion to knock
down the wall sooner or later. "But you are a very naughty and
ungrateful creature, and you must be punished. I will now proceed to
punish you. We have much to do before the lunch. Go and get ready, and
simply put on all the clothes that have cost the most money. They are
the clothes fittest for your punishment."
Three-quarters of an hour later, when Mr. Prohack had telephoned and
sent a confirmatory note by hand to his bank, Carthew drove them away
southwards, and the car stopped in front of the establishment of a very
celebrated firm of jewellers near Piccadilly.
"Come along," said Mr. Prohack, descending to the pavement, and drew
after him a moving marble statue, richly attired. They entered the
glittering shop, and were immediately encountered by an expectant
salesman who had the gifts of wearing a frock-coat as though he had been
born in it, and of reading the hearts of men. That salesman saw in a
flash that big business was afoot.
"First of all," said Mr. Prohack. "Here is my card, so that we may know
where we stand."
The salesman read the card and was suitably impressed, but his
conviction that big business was afoot seemed now to be a little shaken.
"May I venture to hope that the missing necklace has been found, sir?"
said the salesman smoothly. "We've all been greatly interested in the
newspaper story."
"That is beside the point," said Mr. Prohack. "I've come simply to buy a
pearl necklace."
"I beg pardon, sir. Certainly. Will you have the goodness to step this
way."
They were next in a private room off the shop; and the sole items of
furniture were three elegant chairs, a table with a glass top, and a
colossal safe. Another salesman entered the room with bows, and keys
were produced, and the two salesmen between them swung back the majestic
dark green doors of the safe. In another minute various pearl necklaces
were lying on the table. The spectacle would have dazzled a connoisseur
in pearls; but Mr. Prohack was not a connoisseur; he was not even
interested in pearls, and saw on the table naught but a monotonous array
of pleasing gewgaws, to his eye differing one from another only in size.
He was, however, actuated by a high moral purpose, which uplifted him
and enabled him to listen with dignity to the technical eulogies given
by the experts. Eve of course behaved with impeccable correctness,
hiding the existence of the wall from everybody except Mr. Prohack, but
forcing Mr. Prohack to behold the wall all the time.
When he had reached a state of complete bewilderment regarding the
respective merits of the necklaces, Mr. Prohack judged the moment ripe
for proceeding to business. With his own hands he clasped a necklace
round his wife's neck, and demanded:
"What is the price of this one?"
"Eight hundred and fifty pounds," answered the principal expert, who
seemed to recognise every necklace at sight as a shepherd recognises
every sheep in his flock.
"Do you think this would suit you, my dear?" asked Mr. Prohack.
"I think so," replied Eve politely.
"Well, I'm not so sure," said Mr. Prohack, reflectively. "What about
this one?" And he picked up and tried upon Eve another and a larger
necklace.
"That," said the original expert, "is two thousand four hundred
guineas."
"It seems cheap," said Mr. Prohack carelessly. "But there's something
about the gradation that I don't quite like. What about this one?"
Eve opened her mouth, as if about to speak, but she did not speak. The
wall, which had trembled for a few seconds, regained its monumental
solidity.
"Five thousand guineas," said the expert of the third necklace.
"Hm!" commented Mr. Prohack, removing the gewgaw. "Yes. Not so bad. And
yet--"
"That necklace," the expert announced with a mien from which all
deference had vanished, "is one of the most perfect we have. The pearls
have, if I may so express it, a homogeneity not often arrived at in any
necklace. They are not very large of course--"
"Quite so," Mr. Prohack stopped him, selecting a fourth necklace.
"Yes," the expert admitted, his deference returning. "That one is
undoubtedly superior. Let me see, we have not yet exactly valued it, but
I think we could put it in at ten thousand guineas--perhaps pounds. I
should have to consult one of the partners."
"It is scarcely," said Mr. Prohack, surveying the trinket judicially on
his wife's neck, "scarcely the necklace of my dreams,--not that I would
say a word against it.... Ah!" And he pounced suddenly, with an air of
delighted surprise, upon a fifth necklace, the queen of necklaces.
"My dear, try this one. Try this one. I didn't notice it before. Somehow
it takes my fancy, and as I shall obviously see much more of your
necklace than you will, I should like my taste to be consulted."
As he fastened the catch of the thing upon Eve's delicious nape, he
could feel that she was trembling. He surveyed the dazzling string. She
also surveyed it, fascinated, spellbound. Even Mr. Prohack began to
perceive that the reputation and value of fine pearls might perhaps be
not entirely unmerited in the world.
"Sixteen thousand five hundred," said the expert.
"Pounds or guineas?" Mr. Prohack blandly enquired.
"Well, sir, shall we say pounds?"
"I think I will take it," said Mr. Prohack with undiminished blandness.
"No, my dear, don't take it off. Don't take it off."
"Arthur!" Eve breathed, seeming to expire in a kind of agonised protest.
"May I have a few minutes' private conversation with my wife?" Mr.
Prohack suggested. "Could you leave us?" One expert glanced at the other
awkwardly.
"Pardon my lack of savoir vivre," said Mr. Prohack. "Of course you
cannot possibly leave us alone with all these valuables. Never mind! We
will call again."
The principal expert rose sublimely to the great height of the occasion.
He had a courageous mind and was moreover well acquainted with the
fantastic folly of allowing customers to call again. Within his
experience of some thirty years he had not met half a dozen exceptions
to the rule that customers who called again, if ever they did call,
called in a mood of hard and miserly sanity which for the purposes of
the jewellery business was sickeningly inferior to their original mood.
"Please, please, Mr. Prohack!" said he, with grand deprecation, and
departed out of the room with his fellow.
No sooner had they gone than the wall sank. It did not tumble with a
crash; it most gently subsided.
"Arthur!" Eve exclaimed, with a curious uncertainty of voice. "Are you
mad?"
"Yes," said Mr. Prohack.
"Well," said she. "If you think I shall walk about London with sixteen
thousand five hundred pounds round my neck you're mistaken."
"But I insist! You were a martyr and our marriage was ruined because I
didn't give you real pearls. I intend you shall have real pearls."
"But not these," said Eve. "It's too much. It's a fortune."
"I am aware of that," Mr. Prohack agreed. "But what is sixteen thousand
five hundred pounds to me?"
"Truly I couldn't, darling," Eve wheedled.
"I am not your darling," said Mr. Prohack. "How can I be your darling
when you're never going to forgive me? Look here. I'll let you choose
another necklace, but only on the condition that you forgive all my
alleged transgressions, past, present and to come."
She kissed him.
"You can have the one at five thousand guineas," said Mr. Prohack.
"Nothing less. That is my ultimatum. Put it on. Put it on, quick! Or I
may change my mind."
He recalled the experts who, when they heard the grave news, smiled
bravely, and looked upon Eve as upon a woman whose like they might never
see again.
"My wife will wear the necklace at once," said Mr. Prohack. "Pen and
ink, please." He wrote a cheque. "My car is outside. Perhaps you will
send some one up to my bank immediately and cash this. We will wait. I
have warned the bank. There will be no delay. The case can be delivered
at my house. You can make out the receipt and usual guarantee while
we're waiting." And so it occurred as he had ordained.
"Would you care for us to arrange for the insurance? We undertake to do
it as cheaply as anybody," the expert suggested, later.
Mr. Prohack was startled, for in his inexperience he had not thought of
such complications.
"I was just going to suggest it," he answered placidly.
"I feel quite queer," said Eve, as she fingered the necklace, in the
car, when all formalities were accomplished and they had left the cave
of Aladdin.
"And well you may, my child," said Mr. Prohack. "The interest on the
price of that necklace would about pay the salary of a member of
Parliament or even of a professional cricketer. And remember that
whenever you wear the thing you are in danger of being waylaid, brutally
attacked, and robbed."
"I wish you wouldn't be silly," Eve murmured. "I do hope I shan't seem
self-conscious at the lunch."
"We haven't reached the lunch yet," Mr. Prohack replied. "We must go and
buy a safe first. There's no safe worth twopence in the house, and a
really safe safe is essential. And I want it to be clearly understood
that I shall keep the key of that safe. We aren't playing at necklaces
now. Life is earnest."
And when they had bought a safe and were once more in the car, he said,
examining her impartially: "After all, at a distance of four feet it
doesn't look nearly so grand as the one that's lying at Scotland Yard--I
gave thirty pounds for that one."