Part 56 (2/2)

In that moment Mr. Prohack had a distressing glimpse into the illogical peculiarities of the human conscience, especially his own. He knew that he ought to accept Mimi's offer, since it would definitely obviate the possible consequences of a criminal act and close a discreditable incident. But he thought of his bad nights instead of thinking of Mimi's morals and the higher welfare of society.

”No,” he said. ”Let sleeping clocks lie.” And he saw that Mimi read the meanness of his soul and was silently greeting him as a fellow-sinner.

She surprised him by saying:

”I a.s.sure you, Mr. Prohack, that my sole idea--that our sole idea--was to make the house more possible for you.” And as she uttered these words she gazed at him with a sort of delicious pouting, challenging reproach.

What a singular remark, he thought! It implied a comprehension of the fact, which he had considerately never disclosed, that he objected to the house _in toto_ and would have been happier in his former abode.

And, curiously, it implied further that she comprehended and sympathised with his objections. She knew she had not done everything necessary to reconcile him to the n.o.ble mansion, but she had done what she could--and it was not negligible.

”Nothing of the kind,” said he. ”You simply had no 'sole idea.' When I admitted just now that your motives were good I was exaggerating. Your motives were only half good, and if you think otherwise you are deceiving yourself; you are not being realistic. In that respect you are no better than anybody else.”

”What was my other motive, then?” she enquired submissively, as if appealing for information to the greatest living authority on the enigmas of her own heart.

”Your other motive was to satisfy your d.a.m.nable instinct for dubious and picturesque adventure,” said Mr. Prohack. ”You were pandering to the evil in you. If you could have stopped the clock from striking by walking down Bond Street in Mrs. Slipstone's clothes and especially her boots, would you have done it? Certainly not. Of course you wouldn't.

Don't try to come the self-sacrificing saint over me, because you can't do it.”

These words, even if amounting to a just estimate of the situation, were ruthless and terrible. They might have accomplished some genuine and lasting good if Mr. Prohack had spoken them in a tone corresponding to their import. But he did not. His d.a.m.nable instinct for pleasing people once more got the better of him, and he spoke them in a benevolent and paternal tone, his voice vibrating with compa.s.sion and with appreciation of her d.a.m.nable instinct for dubious and picturesque adventure. The tone destroyed the significance of the words.

Moreover, not content with the falsifying tone, he rose up from his chair as he spoke, approached the charming and naughty girl, and patted her on the shoulder. The rebuke, indeed, ended by being more agreeable to the sinner than praise might have been from a man less corroded with duplicity than Mr. Prohack.

Mimi surprised him a second time.

”You're perfectly right,” she said. ”You always are.” And she seized his limp hand in hers and kissed it,--and ran away, leaving him looking at the kissed hand.

Well, he was flattered, and he was pleased; or at any rate something in him, some fragmentary part of him, was flattered and pleased. Mimi's gesture was a triumph for a man nearing fifty; but it was an alarming triumph.... Odd that in that moment he should think of Lady Ma.s.sulam!

His fatal charm was as a razor. Had he been playing with it as a baby might play with a razor?... Popinjay? c.o.xcomb? Perhaps, Nevertheless, the wench had artistically kissed his hand, and his hand felt self-complacent, even if he didn't.

Brool, towards whom Mr. Prohack felt no impulse of good-will, came largely in with a salver on which were the morning letters and the morning papers, including the paper perused by Machin with her early bedside tea and doubtless carefully folded again in its original creases to look virginal.

The reappearance of that sheet had somewhat the quality of a sinister miracle to Mr. Prohack. He asked no questions about it so that he might be told no lies, but he searched it in vain for a trace of the suffering Machin. It was, however, full of typographical traces of himself and his family. The description of the reception was disturbingly journalistic, which adjective, for Mr. Prohack, unfortunately connoted the adjective vulgar. All the wrong people were in the list of guests, and all the decent quiet people were omitted. A value of twenty thousand pounds was put upon the necklace, contradicting another part of the report which stated the pearls to be ”priceless.” Mr. Prohack's fortune was referred to; also his Treasury past; the implication being that the fortune had caused him to leave the Treasury. His daughter's engagement to Mr.

Morfey was glanced at; and it was remarked that Mr. Morfey--”known to all his friends and half London as 'Ozzie' Morfey”--was intimately connected with the greatest stage Napoleon in history, Mr. Asprey Chown.

Finally a few words were given to Charlie; who was dubbed ”a budding financier already responsible for one highly successful _coup_ and likely to be responsible for several others before much more water has run under the bridges of the Thames.”

Mr. Prohack knew, then, in his limbs the meaning of the word ”writhe,”

and he was glad that he had not had his bath, because even if he had had his bath he would have needed another one. His att.i.tude towards his fellow men had a touch of embittered and cynical scorn unworthy of a philosopher. He turned, in another paper, to the financial column, for, though all his money was safe in fixed-interest-bearing securities, the fluctuations of whose capital value could not affect his safety, yet he somehow could not remain quite indifferent to the fluctuations of their capital value; and in the financial column he saw a reference to a ”young operator,” who, he was convinced, could be no other than Charlie; in the reference there was a note of sarcasm which hurt Mr. Prohack and aroused anew his apprehensions.

And among his correspondence was a letter which had been delivered by hand. He thought he knew the handwriting on the envelope, and he did: it was from Mr. Softly Bishop. Mr. Softly Bishop begged, in a very familiar style, that Mr. Prohack and wife would join himself and Miss Fancy on an early day at a little luncheon party, and he announced that the 'highly desirable event to the possibility of which he had alluded' on the previous evening, had duly occurred. Strange, the fellow's eagerness to publish his engagement to a person of more notoriety than distinction!

The fellow must have ”popped the question” while escorting Miss Fancy home in the middle of the night, and he must have written the note before breakfast and despatched it by special messenger. What a mentality!

Mr. Prohack desired now a whole series of baths. And he was very hara.s.sed indeed. If he, by a fluke, had discovered the escapade of the church-tower and the church-clock, why should not others discover it by other flukes? Was it conceivable that such a matter should forever remain a secret? The thing, to Mr. Prohack's sick imagination, was like a bomb with a fuse attached and the fuse lighted. When the bomb did go off, what trouble for an entirely innocent Mr. Prohack! And he loathed the notion of his proud, strong daughter being affianced to a man who, however excellent intrinsically, was the myrmidon of that sublime showman, Mr. Asprey Chown. And he hated his connection with Mr. Softly Bishop and with Miss Fancy. Could he refuse the invitation to the little luncheon party? He knew that he could not refuse it. His connection with these persons was indisputable and the social consequences of it could not be fairly avoided. As for the matter of the necklace, he held that he could deal with that,--but could he? He lacked confidence in himself.

Even his fixed interest-bearing securities might, by some inconceivable world-catastrophe, cease to bear interest, and then where would he be?

Philosophy! Philosophy was absurdly unpractical. Philosophy could not cope with real situations. Where had he sinned? Nowhere. He had taken Dr. Veiga's advice and given up trying to fit his environment to himself instead of vice versa. He had let things rip and shown no egotistic concern in the business of others. But was he any better off in his secret soul? Not a whit. He ought to have been happy; he was miserable.

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