I  
 
Within a few moments of his final waking up the next morning, Mr. Prohack beheld¹ Eve bending over him, the image of solicitude². She was dressed for outdoor business.
 
"How do you feel?" she asked, in a tender tone that demanded to know the worst at once.
 
"Why?" asked Mr. Prohack, thus with one word, and a smile to match, criticising her tone.
 
"You looked so dreadfully tired last night. I did feel sorry for you, darling. Don't you think you'd better stay in bed to-day?"
 
"Can you seriously suggest such a thing?" he cried. "What about my daily programme if I stay in bed? I have undertaken to be idle, and nobody can be scientifically idle in bed. I'm late already. Where's my breakfast? Where are my newspapers? I must begin the day without the loss of another moment. Please give me my dressing-gown."
 
"I very much wonder how your blood-pressure is," Eve complained.
 
"And you, I suppose, are perfectly⁴ well?"
 
"Oh, yes, I am. I'm absolutely cured. Dr. Veiga is really very marvellous. But I always told you he was."
 
"Well," said Mr. Prohack. "What's sauce for the goose has to be sauce for the gander. If you're perfectly well, so am I. You can't have the monopoly of good health in this marriage. What's that pamphlet you've got in your hand, my dove?"
 
"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 blandly⁶:
 
"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 entirely⁷ 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 specially⁸ 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 chauffeur⁹'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 deliberately¹⁰ 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 determined¹¹ 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. Apparently¹² 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 disturbances¹³, and as though no wife could possibly see in them any matter for astonishment¹⁴ 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 meditated¹⁵ somewhat uneasily upon the domestic difficulties which might inhere in this impulsive¹⁶ 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 warily¹⁷.
 
"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 braces¹⁸ yesterday morning, I did order a secretary. She was recommended to me."
 
"You didn't say anything about it yesterday."
 
"My dove, had I a chance to do so? Had we a single moment together? And you know how I was when we reached home, don't you?... You see, I always had a secretary at the Treasury¹⁹, and I feel sort of lost without one. So I—"
 
"But, darling, of course! I always believe in letting you do exactly as you like. It's the only way.... Au revoir, my pet. Charlie will be frightfully angry with me." And then, at the door: "If she hasn't got anything to do she can always see to the flowers for me. Perhaps when I come back you'll introduce us."
 
As soon as he had heard the bang of the front-door Mr. Prohack rang his bell.
 
"Machin, I understand that my secretary is waiting in the dining-room."
 
"Yes, sir."
 
"Ask her to take her things off and then bring her up here."
 
"Up here, sir?"
 
"That's right."
 
In seven movements of unimaginable stealthy swiftness Machin tidied the worst disorders²⁰ of the room and departed. Mr. Prohack continued his breakfast.
 
Miss Winstock appeared with a small portable typewriter in her arms and a notebook lodged²¹ on the typewriter. She was wearing a smart black skirt and a smart white blouse with a high collar. In her unsullied freshness of attire²² she somewhat resembled a stage secretary on a first night; she might have been mistaken for a brilliant imitation of a real secretary.
 
 
 
II
"Good morning. So you're come," Mr. Prohack greeted her firmly.
 
"Good morning. Yes, Mr. Prohack."
 
"Well, put that thing down on a chair somewhere."
 
Machin also had entered the room. She handed a paper to Mr. Prohack.
 
"Mistress asked me to give you that, sir."
 
It was a lengthy²³ description, typewritten, of a house in Manchester Square.
 
"Pass me those matches, please," said Mr. Prohack to Mimi when they were alone. "By the way, why wouldn't you give your name when you arrived?"
 
"Because I didn't know what it was."
 
"Didn't know what it was?"
 
"When I told you my Christian²⁵ name yesterday you said it wouldn't do at all, and I was never to mention it again. In the absence of definite instructions about my surname I thought I had better pursue a cautious policy of waiting. I've told the chauffeur that he will know my name in due course and that until I tell him what it is he mustn't know it. I was not sure whether you would wish the members of your household to know that I'm the person who had a collision with your car. Mrs. Prohack and I were both in a state of collapse²⁶ after the accident, and I was removed before she could see me. Therefore she did not recognise me this morning. But on the other hand she has no doubt heard my name often enough since the accident and would recognise that."
 
Mr. Prohack lit the first cigarette of the day.
 
"Why did you bring that typewriter?" he asked gravely.
 
"It's mine. I thought that if you didn't happen to have one here it might be useful. It was the typewriter that the car had to go back for. I'd forgotten it. I can take it away again. But if you like you can either buy it or hire it from me."
 
The girl could not have guessed it from his countenance²⁷, but Mr. Prohack was thunderstruck. She was bringing forward considerations which positively²⁸ had not presented themselves to him. That she had much initiative was clear from her conduct of the previous day. She now disclosed a startling capacity for intrigue²⁹. Mr. Prohack, however, was not intimidated³⁰. The experience of an official life had taught him the value of taciturnity, and moreover a comfortable feeling of satisfaction stole over him as he realised that once again he had a secretary under his thumb. He seemed to be delightfully³¹ resuming the habits which ill-health had so ruthlessly broken.
 
"Mary Warburton," said he at length.
 
"Certainly," said she. "I'll tell your chauffeur."
 
"The initials will correspond—in case—"
 
"Yes," said she. "I'd noticed that."
 
"We will see what your typewriting machine is capable of, and then I'll decide about it."
 
"Certainly."
 
"Please take down some letters."
 
"Mr. Carrel Quire always told me what he wanted said, and I wrote the letters myself."
 
"That is very interesting," said Mr. Prohack. "Perhaps you can manage to sit at the dressing-table. Mind that necklace there. It's supposed to be rather valuable. Put it in the case, and put the case in the middle drawer."
 
"Don't you keep it in a safe?" said Miss Warburton, obeying.
 
"All questions about necklaces should be addressed direct to Mrs. Prohack."
 
"I prefer to take down on my knee," said Miss Warburton, opening her notebook, "if I am to take down."
 
"You are. Now. 'Dear Madam. I am requested by my Lords of the Treasury to forward to you the enclosed cheque for one hundred pounds for your Privy³³ Purse.' New line. 'I am also to state that no account of expenditure³⁴ will be required.' New line. 'Be good enough to acknowledge receipt. Your obedient servant. To Miss Prohack, Grand Babylon Hotel.' Got it? 'Dear Sir. With reference to the action instituted by your company against Miss Mimi Winstock, and to my claim against your company under my accident policy. I have seen the defendant³⁵. She had evidently behaved in an extremely foolish not to say criminal way; but as the result of a personal appeal from her I have decided³⁶ to settle the matter privately³⁷. Please therefore accept this letter as a release from all your liabilities to me, and also as my personal undertaking³⁸ to pay all the costs of the action on both sides. Yours faithfully. Secretary, World's Car Insurance Corporation.' Wipe your eyes, wipe your eyes, Miss Warburton. You're wetting the notebook."
 
"I was only crying because you're so kind. I know I did behave in a criminal way."
 
"Just so, Miss Warburton. But it will be more convenient for me and for you too if you can arrange to cry in your own time and not in mine." And he continued to address her, in his own mind: "Don't think I haven't noticed your aspiring³⁹ nose and your ruthless little lips and your gift for conspiracy⁴⁰ and your wonderful weakness for tears! And don't confuse me with Mr. Carrel Quire, because we're two quite different people! You've got to be useful to me." And in a more remote part of his mind, he continued still further: "You're quite a decent sort of child, only you've been spoilt. I'll unspoil you. You've taken your first medicine rather well. I like you, or I shall like you before I've done with you."
 
Miss Warburton wiped her eyes.
 
"You understand," Mr. Prohack proceeded aloud, "that you're engaged as my confidential⁴¹ secretary. And when I say 'confidential' I mean 'confidential' in the fullest sense."
 
"Oh, quite," Miss Warburton concurred⁴² almost passionately⁴³.
 
"And you aren't anybody else's secretary but mine. You may pretend to be everybody else's secretary, you may pretend as much as you please—it may even be advisable to do so—but the fact must always remain that you are mine alone. You have to protect my interests, and let me warn you that my interests are sometimes very strange, not to say peculiar⁴⁴. Get well into your head that there are not ten commandments in my service. There is only one: to watch over my interests, to protect them against everybody else in the whole world. In return for a living wage, you give me the most absolute loyalty⁴⁵, a loyalty which sticks at nothing, nothing, nothing."
 
"Oh, Mr. Prohack!" replied Mary Warburton, smiling simply. "You needn't tell me all that. I entirely understand. It's the usual thing for confidential secretaries, isn't it?"
 
"And now," Mr. Prohack went on, ignoring her. "This being made perfectly clear, go into the boudoir—that's the room through there—and bring me here all the parcels lying about. Our next task is to check the accuracy of several of the leading tradesmen in the West End."
 
"I think there are one or two more parcels that have been delivered this morning, in the hall," said Miss Warburton. "Perhaps I had better fetch them."
 
"Perhaps you had."
 
In a few minutes, Miss Warburton, by dint⁴⁶ of opening parcels, had transformed the bedroom into a composite of the principal men's shops in Piccadilly and Bond Street. Mr. Prohack recoiled⁴⁷ before the chromatic⁴⁸ show and also before the prospect⁴⁹ of Eve's views on the show.
 
"Take everything into the boudoir," said he, "and arrange them under the sofa. It's important that we should not lose our heads in this crisis. When you go out to lunch you will buy some foolscap paper and this afternoon you will make a schedule of the goods, divided according to the portions of the human frame which they are intended to conceal⁵⁰ or adorn⁵¹. What are you laughing at, Miss Warburton?"
 
"You are so amusing, Mr. Prohack."
 
"I may be amusing, but I am not susceptible⁵² to the flattery of giggling⁵³. Endeavour not to treat serious subjects lightly."
 
"I don't see any boots."
 
"Neither do I. You will telephone to the bootmaker's, and to my tailor's; also to Sir Paul Spinner and Messrs. Smathe and Smathe. But before that I will just dictate⁵⁴ a few more letters."
 
"Certainly."
 
When he had finished dictating⁵⁵, Mr. Prohack said:
 
"I shall now get up. Go downstairs and ask Machin—that's the parlourmaid—to show you the breakfast-room. The breakfast-room is behind the dining-room, and is so called because it is never employed for breakfast. It exists in all truly London houses, and is perfectly useless in all of them except those occupied by dentists, who use it for their beneficent labours in taking things from, or adding things to, the bodies of their patients. The breakfast-room in this house will be the secretary's room—your room if you continue to give me satisfaction. Remove that typewriting machine from here, and arrange your room according to your desire.... And I say, Miss Warburton."
 
"Yes, Mr. Prohack," eagerly responded the secretary, pausing at the door.
 
"Yesterday I gave you a brief outline of your duties. But I omitted one exceedingly important item—almost as important as not falling in love with my son. You will have to keep on good terms with Machin. Machin is indispensable and irreplaceable. I could get forty absolutely loyal secretaries while my wife was unsuccessfully searching for another Machin."
 
"I have an infallible way with parlourmaids," said Miss Warburton.
 
"What is that?"
 
"I listen to their grievances⁵⁶ and to their love-affairs."
 
Mr. Prohack, though fatigued⁵⁷, felt himself to be inordinately⁵⁸ well, and he divined that this felicity was due to the exercise of dancing on the previous night, following upon the Turkish bath. He had not felt so well for many years. He laughed to himself at intervals⁵⁹ as he performed his toilette, and knew not quite why. His secretary was just like a new toy to him, offering many of the advantages of official life and routine without any of the drawbacks. At half past eleven he descended⁶⁰, wearing one or two of the more discreet⁶¹ of his new possessions, and with the sensation of having already transacted⁶³ a good day's work, into the breakfast-room and found Miss Warburton and Machin in converse⁶⁴. Machin feverishly⁶⁵ poked⁶⁶ the freshly-lit fire and then, pretending to have urgent business elsewhere, left the room.
 
"Here are some particulars of a house in Manchester Square," said Mr. Prohack. "Please read them."
 
Miss Warburton complied.
 
"It seems really very nice," said she. "Very nice indeed."
 
"Does it? Now listen to me. That house is apparently the most practical and the most beautiful house in London. Judging from the description, it deserves to be put under a glass-case in a museum and labelled 'the ideal house.' There is no fault to be found with that house, and I should probably take it at once but for one point. I don't want it. I do not want it. Do I make myself clear? I have no use for it whatever."
 
"Then you've inspected it."
 
"I have not. But I don't want it. Now a determined effort will shortly be made to induce me to take that house. I will not go into details or personalities⁶⁷. I say merely that a determined effort will shortly be made to force me to act against my will and my wishes. This effort must be circumvented⁶⁸. In a word, the present is a moment when I may need the unscrupulous services of an utterly⁶⁹ devoted⁷⁰ confidential secretary."
 
"What am I to do?"
 
"I haven't the slightest idea. All I know is that my existence must not on any account be complicated, and that the possession of that house would seriously complicate⁷¹ it."
 
"Will you leave the matter to me, Mr. Prohack?"
 
"What shall you do?"
 
"Wouldn't it be better for you not to know what I should do?" Miss Warburton glanced at him oddly. Her glance was agreeable, and yet disconcerting. The attractiveness of the young woman seemed to be accentuated⁷². The institution of the confidential secretary was magnified, in the eyes of Mr. Prohack, into one of the greatest achievements of human society.
 
"Not at all," said he, in reply. "You are under-rating my capabilities⁷³, for I can know and not know simultaneously⁷⁴."
 
"Well," said Miss Warburton. "You can't take an old house without having the drains examined, obviously. Supposing the report on the drains was unfavourable?"
 
"Do you propose to tamper⁷⁵ with the drains?"
 
"Certainly not. I shouldn't dream of doing anything so disgraceful. But I might tamper with the surveyor who made the report on the drains."
 
"Say no more," Mr. Prohack adjured⁷⁶ her. "I'm going out."
 
And he went out, though he had by no means finished instructing Miss Warburton in the art of being his secretary. She did not even know where to find the essential tools of her calling, nor yet the names of tradesmen to whom she had to telephone. He ought to have stayed in if only to present his secretary to his wife. But he went out—to reflect in private upon her initiative, her ready resourcefulness, her great gift for conspiracy. He had to get away from her. The thought of her induced in him qualms⁷⁷ of trepidation⁷⁸. Could he after all manage her? What a loss would she be to Mr. Carrel Quire! Nevertheless she was capable of being foolish. It was her foolishness that had transferred her from Mr. Carrel Quire to himself.
 
 
 
III
Mr. Prohack went out because he was drawn⁷⁹ out, by the force of an attraction which he would scarcely avow⁸⁰ even to himself,—a mysterious and horrible attraction which, if he had been a logical human being like the rest of us, ought to have been a repulsion for him.
 
And as he was walking abroad in the pleasant foggy sunshine of the West End streets, a plutocratic⁸¹ idler with nothing to do but yield to strange impulses, he saw on a motor-bus the placard of a financial daily paper bearing the line: "The Latest Oil Coup⁸²." He immediately wanted to buy that paper. As a London citizen he held the opinion that whenever he wanted a thing he ought to be able to buy it at the next corner. Yet now he looked in every direction but could see no symptom of a newspaper shop anywhere. The time was morning—for the West End it was early morning—and there were newsboys on the pavements, but by a curious anomaly they were selling evening and not morning newspapers. Daringly he asked one of these infants for the financial daily; the infant sniggered and did no more. Another directed him to a shop up an alley⁸³ off the Edgware Road. The shopman doubted the existence of any such financial daily as Mr. Prohack indicated, apparently attaching no importance to the fact that it was advertised on every motor-bus travelling along the Edgware Road, but he suggested that if it did exist, it might just conceivably be purchased at the main bookstall at Paddington Station. Determined to obtain the paper at all costs, Mr. Prohack stopped a taxi-cab and drove to Paddington, squandering⁸⁴ eighteenpence on the journey, and reflecting as he rolled forward upon the primitiveness⁸⁵ of a so-called civilisation⁸⁶ in which you could not buy a morning paper in the morning without spending the whole morning over the transaction—and reflecting also upon the disturbing fact that after one full day of its practice, his scheme of scientific idleness had gone all to bits. He got the paper, and read therein a very exciting account of Sir Paul Spinner's deal in oil-lands. The amount of Paul's profit was not specified⁸⁷, but readers were given to understand that it was enormous and that Paul had successfully bled the greatest Oil Combine in the world. The article, though discreet and vague in phraseology, was well worth a line on any placard. It had cost Mr. Prohack the price of a complete Shakespere, but he did not call it dear. He threw the paper away with a free optimistic gesture of delight. Yes, he had wisely put his trust in old Paul and he was veritably a rich man—one who could look down on mediocre⁸⁸ fortunes of a hundred thousand pounds or so. Civilisation was not so bad after all.
 
Then the original attraction which had drawn him out of the house resumed its pull.... Why did his subconscious⁸⁹ feet take him in the direction of Manchester Square? True, the Wallace Collection of pictures is to be found at Hertford House, Manchester Square, and Mr. Prohack had always been interested in pictures! Well, if he did happen to find himself in Manchester Square he might perhaps glance at the exterior⁹⁰ of the dwelling⁹¹ which his son desired to plant upon him and his wife desired him to be planted with.... It was there right enough. It had not been spirited away in the night hours. He recognised the number. An enormous house; the largest in the Square after Hertford House. Over its monumental portico⁹² was an enormous sign, truthfully describing it as "this noble mansion⁹³." As no automobile⁹⁴ stood at the front-door Mr. Prohack concluded that his wife's visit of inspection⁹⁵ was over. Doubtless she was seeking him at home at that moment to the end of persuading him by her soft, unscrupulous arts to take the noble mansion.
 
The front-door was ajar. Astounding⁹⁶ carelessness on the part of the caretaker! Mr. Prohack's subconscious legs carried him into the house. The interior was amazing. Mr. Prohack had always been interested, not only in pictures, but in furniture. Pictures and furniture might have been called the weakness to which his circumstances had hitherto compelled him to be too strong to yield. He knew a good picture, and he knew a good piece of furniture, when he saw them. The noble mansion was full of good pictures and good furniture. Evidently it had been the home of somebody who had both fine tastes and the means to gratify them. And the place was complete. Nothing had been removed, and nothing had been protected against the grimy dust of London. The occupiers might have walked out of it a few hours earlier. The effect of dark richness in the half-shuttered rooms almost overwhelmed Mr. Prohack. Nobody preventing, he climbed the beautiful Georgian staircase, which was carpeted with a series of wondrous⁹⁷ Persian carpets laid end to end. A woman in a black apron⁹⁸ appeared in the hall from the basement, gazed at Mr. Prohack's mounting legs, and said naught⁹⁹. On the first-floor was the drawing-room, a magnificent apartment exquisitely¹⁰⁰ furnished in Louis Quinze. Mr. Prohack blenched¹⁰². He had expected nothing half so marvellous. Was it possible that he could afford to take this noble mansion and live in it? It was more than possible; it was sure.
 
Mr. Prohack had a foreboding of a wild, transient impulse to take it. The impulse died ere it was born. No further complications of his existence were to be permitted; he would fight against them to the last drop of his blood. And the complications incident to residence in such an abode¹⁰³ would be enormous. Still, he thought that he might as well see the whole house, and he proceeded upstairs, wondering how many people there were in London who possessed¹⁰⁴ the taste to make, and the money to maintain, such a home. Even the stairs from the first to the second floor, were beautiful, having a lovely carpet, lovely engravings on the walls, and a delightful³² balustrade. On the second-floor landing were two tables covered with objects of art, any of which Mr. Prohack might have pocketed and nobody the wiser; the carelessness that left the place unguarded was merely prodigious¹⁰⁵.
 
Mr. Prohack heard a sound; it might have been the creak of a floor-board or the displacement¹⁰⁶ of a piece of furniture. Startled, he looked through a half-open door into a small room. He could see an old gilt¹⁰⁷ mirror over a fire-place; and in the mirror the images of the upper portions of a young man and a young woman. The young woman was beyond question Sissie Prohack. The young man, he decided after a moment of hesitation—for he could distinguish only a male overcoated back in the glass—was Oswald Morfey. The images were very close together. They did not move. Then Mr. Prohack overheard a whisper, but did not catch its purport¹⁰⁸. Then the image of the girl's face began to blush; it went redder and redder, and the crimson¹⁰⁹ seemed to flow downwards¹¹⁰ until the exposed neck blushed also. A marvellous and a disconcerting spectacle. Mr. Prohack felt that he himself ............