Mr. Prohack Part 7

"Strain, darling?"

"Strain. These extremes of heat and cold would try a stronger man than me."

"Extremes of heat and cold, darling?"

"Well, just think how cold it was this morning and how warm it is to-night."

"You quaint boy!" she murmured, admiring him. "I quite understand.

Quite. How sensitive you are! But then you always were. Now listen here.

Shall _I_ tell the children?" She gave him a long kiss.

"No," said he, making prods at her cheek with his finger, and smiling vaguely. "No. You'll do nothing of the kind. But there's something you _can_ do for me."

"Yes?"

"Will you do it?"

"Yes."

"Whatever it is?"

"If you aren't going to play a trick on me."

"No. It's no trick.

"Very well, then."

"First, you must have one of your best headaches. Second, you must go to bed at once. Third, you must sprinkle some eau-de-cologne on the bed, to deceive the lower orders. Fourth, you must be content with some soup for your dinner, and I'll smuggle you up some dessert in my pocket if you're hungry. Fifth, you must send word to those children of yours that you don't wish to be disturbed."

"But you want to treat me like a baby."

"And supposing I do! For once, can't you be a baby to oblige me?"

"But it's too ridiculous! Why do you want me to go to bed?"

"You know why. Still, I'll tell you. You always like to be told what you know,--for instance, that I'm in love with you. I can't tell those kids to-night, and I'm not going to. The rumpus, the conflict of ideas, the atmospheric disturbance when they do get to know will be terrific, and I simply won't have it to-night. I must have a quiet evening to think in or else I shan't sleep. On the other hand, do you suppose I could sit through dinner opposite you, and you knowing all about it and me knowing all about it, and both of us pretending that there was nothing unusual in the air? It's impossible. Either you'd give the show away, or I should. Or I should burst out laughing. No! I can manage the situation alone, but I can't manage it if you're there. Hence, lady, you will keep your kind promise and hop into bed."

Without another word, but smiling in a most enigmatic manner, Mrs.

Prohack pa.s.sed into the bedroom. The tyrant lit a cigarette, and stretched himself all over the sofa. He thought:

"She's a great woman. She understands. Or at any rate she acts as if she did. Now how many women in similar circ.u.mstances would have--" Etc. Etc.

He listened to her movements. He had not told her everything, for example, the profiteering origin of the fortune, and he wondered whether he had behaved quite nicely in not doing so.

"Arthur," she called from the bedroom.

"Hullo?"

"I do think this is really too silly."

"You're not paid to think, my girl."

A pause.

"Arthur," she called from the bedroom.

"Hullo?"

"You're sure you won't blurt it out to them when I'm not there?"

He only replied: "I'm sorry you've got such a frightful headache, Marian. You wouldn't have these headaches if you took my advice."

A pause.

"I'm in bed."

"All right. Stay there."

When he had finished his cigarette, he went into the bedroom. Yes, she was veritably in bed.

"You are a pig, Arthur. I wonder how many wives--"

He put his hand over her mouth.

"Stop," he said. "I'm not like you. I don't need to be told what I know already."

"But really--!" She dropped her head on one side and began to laugh, and continued to laugh, rather hysterically, until she could not laugh any more. "Oh, dear! We are the queerest pair!"

"It is possible," said he. "You're forgotten the eau-de-cologne." He handed her the bottle. "It is quite possible that we're the queerest pair, but this is a very serious day in the history of the Prohack family. The Prohack family has been starving, and some one's given it an enormous beefsteak. Now it's highly dangerous to give a beefsteak to a starving person. The consequences might be fatal. That's why it's so serious. That's why I must have time to think."

The sound of Sissie playing a waltz on the piano came up from the drawing-room. Mr. Prohack started to dance all by himself in the middle of the bedroom floor.

CHAPTER V

CHARLIE

I

When Mr. Prohack, in his mature but still rich velvet jacket, came down to dinner, he found his son Charlie leaning against the mantelpiece in a new dark brown suit, and studying _The Owner-Driver_. Charlie seemed never to read anything but motor-car and light-car and side-car and motor-bicycle periodical literature; but he read it conscientiously, indefatigably, and completely--advertis.e.m.e.nts and all. He read it as though it were an endless novel of pa.s.sion and he an idle woman deprived of the society her heart longed for. He possessed a motor-bicycle which he stabled in a mews behind the Square. He had possessed several such machines; he bought, altered, and sold them, apparently always with profit to himself. He had no interest in non-mechanical literature or in any of the arts.

"Your mother's gone to bed with a headache," said Mr. Prohack, with a fair imitation of melancholy.

"Oh!" said the young man apathetically. His face had a wearied, disillusioned expression.