Mr. Prohack

"But why spend money uneconomically at all?"

"Because I said and swore I would. Didn't I come back from the war and try all I knew to obtain the inestimable privilege of earning my living by doing something useful? Did I succeed in obtaining the privilege?

Why, n.o.body would look at me! And there were tens of thousands like me.

Well, I said I'd take it out of this n.o.ble country of mine, and I am doing; and I shall keep on doing until I'm tired. These thirty men or so here might be at some useful productive work, fis.h.i.+ng or merchant-marining. They're otherwise engaged. They're spending a pleasant wasteful month over our lunch and tea. That's what I enjoy. It makes me smile to myself when I wake up in the middle of the night....

I'm showing my beloved country who's won the Peace."

"It's a scheme," murmured Mr. Prohack, rendered thoughtful as much by the quiet and intense manner, as by the matter, of his son's oration.

"Boyish, of course, but not without charm."

"We were most of us boys," said Charlie.

Mr. Prohack marshalled, in his head, the perfectly plain, simple reasoning necessary to crush Charlie to powder, and, before crus.h.i.+ng him, to expose to him the crudity of his conceptions of organised social existence. But he said nothing, having hit on another procedure for carrying out his parental duty to Charles. Shortly afterwards they departed from the yacht in the launch. Long ere they reached the waiting motor-car the bunting had been hauled down.

In the car Mr. Prohack said:

"Tell me something more about that paper-making business. It sounds interesting."

III

When Mr. Prohack reached his daughter's house again late in the night, it was his wife who opened the door to him.

"Good heavens, Arthur! Where have you been? Poor Sissie is in such a state--I was obliged to come over and stay with her. She needs the greatest care."

"We had a breakdown," said Mr. Prohack, rather guiltily.

"Who's we? Where? What breakdown? You went off without saying a word to any one. I really can't imagine what you were thinking about. You're just like a child sometimes."

"I went down to Southampton with Charlie," the culprit explained, giving a brief and imperfect history of the day, and adding that on the way home he had made a detour with Charles to look at

"And you couldn't have telephoned!"

"Never thought of it!"

"I'll run and tap at Sissie's door and tell her. Ozzie's with her. You'd better go straight to bed."

"I'm hungry."

Eve made a deprecating and expostulatory noise with her tongue against her upper teeth.

"I'll bring you something to eat. At least I'll try to find something,"

said she.

"And are you sleeping here, too? Where?" Mr. Prohack demanded when Eve crept into Charlie's old bedroom with a tray in her hands.

"I had to stay. I couldn't leave the girl. I'm sleeping in her old room."

"The worst of these kids' rooms," said Mr. Prohack, with an affectation of calm, "is that there are no easy chairs in them. It never struck me before. Look here, you sit on the bed and put the tray down _there_, and I'll occupy this so-called chair. Now, I don't want any sermons. And what is more, I can't eat unless you do. But I tell you I'm very hungry.

So would you be, if you'd had my day."

"You won't sleep if you eat much."

"I don't care if I don't. Is this whiskey? What--bread and cheese? The simple life! I'm not used to it.... Where are you off to?"

"There came a letter for you. I brought it along. It's in the other bedroom."

"Open it for me, my good child," said Mr. Prohack, his mouth full and his hands occupied, when she returned. She did so.

"It seems to me that you'd better read this yourself," she said, naughtily.

The letter was from Lady Ma.s.sulam, signed only with her initials, announcing with a queer brevity that she had suddenly decided to go back at once to her native country to live.

"How strange!" exclaimed Mr. Prohack, trying to be airy. "Listen! What do you make of it. You're a woman, aren't you?"

"I make of it," said Eve, "that she's running away from you. She's afraid of herself, that's what she is! Didn't I always tell you? Oh!

Arthur. How simple you are! But fancy! At her age! Oh, my poor boy!

Shall you get over it?" Eve bent forward and kissed the poor boy, who was cursing himself for not succeeding in not being self-conscious.

"Rot!" he exploded at last. "I said you were a woman, and by all the G.o.ds you are! Give me some more food."

He was aware of a very peculiar and unprecedented thrill. He hated to credit Eve's absurd insinuation, but...! And Eve looked at him superiorly, triumphant, sure of him, sure of her everlasting power over him! Yet she was not romantic, and her plump person did not in the least symbolise romance.

"I've a piece of news for you," he said, after a pause. "After to-night I've done with women and idleness. I'm going into business. I've bought half of that paper-making concern from your singular son, and I'm going to put it on its legs. I know nothing about paper-making, and I can only hope that the London office is not as dirty and untidy as the works. I'd no idea what works were. The whole thing will be a dreadful worry, and I shall probably make a horrid mess of it, but Charlie seems to think I shan't."

"But why--what's come over you, Arthur? Surely we've got enough money.

What _has_ come over you? I never could make you out and I never shall."

"Nothing! Nothing!" said he. "Only I've got a sort of idea that some one Ought to be economic and productive. It may kill me, but I'll die producing, anyhow."

He waited for her to begin upbraiding him for capricious folly and expatiating upon the fragility of his health. But you never know where you are with an Eve. Eves have the most disconcerting gleams of insight.

She said:

"I'm rather glad. I was getting anxious about you."