Mr. Prohack

You do wild and rash things--you have already accomplished several this morning. But you have righteous instincts, though not often enough. Of course, with one word to the insurance company I could save you. The difficulty is that I could not save you without saving Mr. Carrel Quire also. And it would be very wrong of me to save Mr. Carrel Quire, for to save him would be to jeopardise the future of the British Empire, because unless he is scotched, that man's frantic egotism and ruthless ambition will achieve political disaster for four hundred million human beings. I should like to save you. But can I weigh you in the balance against an Empire? Can I, I say?"

"No," answered Miss Winstock weakly but sincerely.

"That's just where you're wrong," said Mr. Prohack. "I can. And you are shamefully ignorant of history. Never yet when empire, any empire, has been weighed in the balance against a young and attractive woman has the young woman failed to win! That is a dreadful fact, but men are thus const.i.tuted. Had you been a hag, I should not have hesitated to do my duty to my country. But as you are what you are, and sitting so agreeably in my car, I will save you and let my country go."

"Oh! Mr. Prohack, you are very kind--but every one told me you were."

"No! I am a knave. Also there is a condition."

"I will agree to anything."

"You must leave Mr. Carrel Quire's service. That man is dangerous not only to empires. The entire environment is the very worst decently possible for a girl like you. Get away from it. If you don't undertake to give him notice at once, and withdraw entirely from his set, then I will ruin both you and him."

"But I shall starve," cried Miss Winstock. "I shall never find another place without influence, and I have no more influence."

"Have the Winstocks no money?"

"Not a penny."

"And have the Paulles no money?"

"None for me."

"You are the ideal programme-girl in a theatre," said Mr. Prohack. "You will never starve. Excuse me for a few minutes. I have another very important appointment," he added, as the car stopped in Piccadilly.

After a quarter of an hour spent in learning that suits were naught, neckties were naught, s.h.i.+rts, collars, socks and even braces were naught, but that hats alone made a man of fas.h.i.+on and idleness, Mr.

Prohack returned to Miss Winstock and announced:

"I will engage you as my private secretary. I need one very badly indeed. In fact I cannot understand how, with all my engagements, I have been able to manage without one so long. Your chief duties will be to keep on good terms with my wife and daughter, and not to fall in love with my son. If you were not too deeply preoccupied with my chauffeur, you may have noticed a young man who came out of the tailors' just before I did. That was my son."

"Oh!" exclaimed Miss Winstock, "the boy who drove off in Lady Ma.s.sulam's car?"

"Was that Lady Ma.s.sulam?" asked Mr. Prohack before he had had time to recover from the immense effect of hearing the startling, almost legendary name of Lady Ma.s.sulam in connection with his son.

"Of course," said Miss Winstock. "Didn't you know?"

Mr. Prohack ignored her pertness.

"Well," he proceeded, having now successfully concealed his emotion, "after having dealt as I suggest with my wife and children, you will deal with my affairs. You shall have the same salary as Mr. Carrel Quire paid--or forgot to pay. Do you agree or not?"

"I should love it," replied Miss Winstock with enthusiasm.

"What is your Christian name?"

"Mimi."

"So it is. I remember now. Well, it won't do at all. Never mention it again, please."

When he had accompanied Mimi to

Prohack abandoned her till the morrow, and drove off quickly to pick up his wife for the Grand Babylon lunch.

"I am a perfect lunatic," said he to himself. "It must be the effect of riches. However, I don't care."

He meant that he didn't care about the conceivable consequences of engaging Mimi Winstock as secretary. But what he did care about was the conjuncture of Lady Ma.s.sulam and Charlie.

CHAPTER XIII

FURTHER IDLENESS

I

Strange, inconceivable as it may appear to people of the great world and readers of newspapers, Mr. Prohack, C.B., had never in his life before been inside the Grand Babylon Hotel. Such may be the narrow and mean existence forced by circ.u.mstances upon secretly powerful servants of the Crown. He arrived late, owing to the intricate preparations of his wife and daughter for Charlie's luncheon. These two were unsuccessfully pretending not to be nervous, and their nervousness reacted upon Mr.

Prohack, who perceived with disgust that his gay and mischievous mood of the morning was slipping away from him despite his efforts to retain it.

He knew now definitely that his health had taken the right turn, and yet he could not prod the youthful Sissie as he had prodded the youthful Mimi Winstock. Moreover Mimi was a secret which would have to be divulged, and this secret not only weighed heavy within him, but seemed disturbingly to counterbalance the secrets that Charlie was withholding.

On the present occasion he saw little of the Grand Babylon, for as soon as he mentioned his son's name to the nonchalant official behind the enquiry counter the official changed like lightning into an obsequious courtier, and Charles's family was put in charge of a hovering attendant boy, who escorted it in a lift and along a mile of corridors, and Charlie's family was kept waiting at a door until the voice of Charlie permitted the boy to open the door. A rather large parlour set with a table for five; a magnificent view from the window of a huge white-bricked wall and scores of chimney pots and electric wires, and a moving grey sky above! Charlie, too, was unsuccessfully pretending not to be nervous.

"Hullo, kid!" he greeted his sister.

"Hullo yourself," responded Sissie.

They shook hands. (They very rarely kissed. However, Charlie kissed his mother. Even he would not have dared not to kiss her.)

"Mater," said he, "let me introduce you to Lady Ma.s.sulam."

Lady Ma.s.sulam had been standing in the window. She came forward with a pleasant, restrained smile and made the acquaintance of Charlie's family; but she was not talkative. Her presence, coming as a terrific surprise to the ladies of the Prohack family, and as a fairly powerful surprise to Mr. Prohack, completed the general constraint. Mrs. Prohack indeed was somewhat intimidated by it. Mrs. Prohack's knowledge of Lady Ma.s.sulam was derived exclusively from _The Daily Picture_, where her portrait was constantly appearing, on all sorts of pretexts, and where she was described as a leader of London society. Mr. Prohack knew of her as a woman credited with great feats of war-work, and also with a certain real talent for organisation; further, he had heard that she had a gift for high finance, and exercised it not without profit. As she happened to be French by birth, no steady English person was seriously upset by the fact that her matrimonial career was obscure, and as she happened to be very rich everybody raised sceptical eyebrows at the a.s.sertion that her husband (a knight) was dead; for _The Daily Picture_ implanted daily in the minds of millions of readers the grand truth that to the very rich nothing can happen simply. The whole _Daily Picture_ world was aware that of late she had lived at the Grand Babylon Hotel in permanence. That world would not have recognised her from her published portraits, which were more historical than actual. Although conspicuously anti-Victorian she had a Victorian beauty of the impressive kind; she had it still. Her hair was of a dark l.u.s.trous brown and showed no grey. In figure she was tall, and rather more than plump and rather less than fat. Her perfect and perfectly worn clothes proved that she knew just how to deal with herself. She would look forty in a theatre, fifty in a garden, and sixty to her maid at dawn.

This important person spoke, when she did speak, with a scarcely perceptible French accent in a fine clear voice. But she spoke little and said practically nothing: which was a shock to Marian Prohack, who had imagined that in the circles graced by Lady Ma.s.sulam conversation varied from badinage to profundity and never halted. It was not that Lady Ma.s.sulam was tongue-tied, nor that she was impolite; it was merely that with excellent calmness she did not talk. If anybody handed her a subject, she just dropped it; the floor around her was strewn with subjects.

The lunch was dreadful, socially. It might have been better if Charlie's family had not been tormented by the tremendous question: what had Charlie to do with Lady Ma.s.sulam? Already Charlie's situation was sufficient of a mystery, without this arch-mystery being spread all over it. And inexperienced Charlie was a poor host; as a host he was positively pathetic, rivalling Lady Ma.s.sulam in taciturnity.

Sissie took to chaffing her brother, and after a time Charlie said suddenly, with curtness:

"Have you dropped that silly dance-scheme of yours, kid?"

Sissie was obliged to admit that she had.

"Then I tell you what you might do. You might come and live here with me for a bit. I want a hostess, you know."

"I will," said Sissie, straight. No consultation of parents!

This brief episode overset Mrs. Prohack. The lunch worsened, to such a point that Mr. Prohack began to grow light-hearted, and chaffed Charlie in his turn. He found material for chaff in the large number of newly bought books that were lying about the room. There was even the _Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics_ in eleven volumes. Queer possessions for a youth who at home had never read aught but the periodical literature of automobilism! Could this be the influence of Lady Ma.s.sulam? Then the telephone bell rang, and it was like a signal of salvation. Charlie sprang at the instrument.

"For you," he said, indicating Lady Ma.s.sulam, who rose.