Part 36 (1/2)

”Oh! It's nothing. It's only about the League of all the Arts. Mr.

Morfey gave it to me.”

”I suppose it was that pamphlet you were reading last night in the boudoir instead of coming to bed. Eve, you're hiding something from me.

Where are you going to in such a hurry?”

”I'm not hiding anything, you silly boy.... I thought I'd just run along and have a look at that house. You see, if it isn't at all the kind of thing to suit us, me going first will save you the trouble of going.”

”_What house?_” exclaimed Mr. Prohack with terrible emphasis.

”But Charlie told me he'd told you all about it,” Eve protested innocently.

”Charlie told you no such thing,” Mr. Prohack contradicted her. ”If he told you anything at all, he merely told you that he'd mentioned a house to me in the most casual manner.”

Eve proceeded blandly:

”It's in Manchester Square, very handy for the Wallace Gallery, and you know how fond you are of pictures. It's on sale, furniture and all; but it can be rented for a year to see how it suits us. Of course it may not suit us a bit. I understand it has some lovely rooms. Charlie says it would be exactly the thing for big receptions.”

”_Big receptions_! I shall have nothing to do with it. Now we've lost our children even this house is too big for us. And I know what the houses in Manchester Square are. You've said all your life you hate receptions.”

”So I do. They're so much trouble. But one never knows what may happen...! And with plenty of servants...!”

”You understand me. I shall have nothing to do with it. Nothing!”

”Darling, please, please don't excite yourself. The decision will rest entirely with you. You know I shouldn't dream of influencing you. As if I could! However, I've promised to meet Charlie there this morning. So I suppose I'd better go. Carthew is late with the car.” She tapped her foot. ”And yet I specially told him to be here prompt.”

”Well, considering the hour he brought us home, he's scarcely had time to get into bed yet. He ought to have had the morning off.”

”Why? A chauffeur's a chauffeur after all. They know what they have to do. Besides, Carthew would do anything for me.”

”Yes, that's you all over. You deliberately bewitch him, and then you shamelessly exploit him. I shall compare notes with Carthew. I can give him a useful tip or two about you.”

”Oh! Here he is!” said Eve, who had been watching out of the window. ”Au revoir, my pet. Here's Machin with your breakfast and newspapers. I daresay I shall be back before you're up. But don't count on me.”

As he raised himself against pillows for the meal, after both she and Machin had gone, Mr. Prohack remembered what his mind had said to him a few hours earlier about fighting against further complications of his existence, and he set his teeth and determined to fight hard.

Scarcely had he begun his breakfast when Eve returned, in a state of excitement.

”There's a young woman downstairs waiting for you in the dining-room.

She wouldn't give her name to Machin, it seems, but she says she's your new secretary. Apparently she recognised my car on the way from the garage and stopped it and got into it; and then she found out she'd forgotten something and the car had to go back with her to where she lives, wherever that is, and that's why Carthew was late for _me_.” Eve delivered these sentences with a tremendous air of ordinariness, as though they related quite usual events and disturbances, and as though no wife could possibly see in them any matter for astonishment or reproach. Such was one of her methods of making an effect.

Mr. Prohack collected himself. On several occasions during the previous afternoon and evening he had meditated somewhat uneasily upon the domestic difficulties which might inhere in this impulsive engagement of Miss Winstock as a private secretary, but since waking up the affair had not presented itself to his mind. He had indeed completely forgotten it.

”Who told you all this?” he asked warily.

”Well, she told Machin and Machin told me.”

”Let me see now,” said Mr. Prohack. ”Yes. It's quite true. After ordering a pair of braces yesterday morning, I did order a secretary.

She was recommended to me.”