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And at length Mr. Bishop remarked, musingly: "Yes. Thanks to the exchange being so low, you stand to receive at the very least a hundred thousand pounds clear after all deductions have been made." "Do I really?" said Mr. Prohack, also musingly. His tranquil tone disguised the immense anarchy within. Silas Angmering had evidently been what is called a profiteer.
"Why she was the star of the universe for Silas Angmering, the founder of our fortunes. She was the finest woman he'd ever met. And Angmering was a clever fellow, let me tell you. You call her a creature. Yes, the creature of destiny, like all of us, except of course you. I beg to inform you that Miss Fancy went out of this hotel a victim, an unconscious victim, but a victim.
Stroke of genius on the part of the Committee! You see it tends to keep guests out of the smoking-room, which for a long time has been getting uncomfortably full after lunch." "Good God!" murmured Mr. Bishop simply. And he added at once, as he lighted the Corona Corona: "Well, I'd better tell you what I've come to see you about. You remember that chap, Silas Angmering?" "Silas Angmering?
"And nothing of this would have happened," he thought, impressed by the wonders of life, "if in a foolish impulse of generosity I hadn't once lent a hundred quid to that chap Angmering." He descried Lady Massulam in converse with a tall, stout and magnificently dressed gentleman, who bowed deeply and departed as Mr. Prohack approached. "Who is your fat friend?" said Mr. Prohack.
No doubt the failure was due to the fact that he had not seen Angmering for so many years. At last Mr. Prohack, his hands in his pockets, his legs stretched out, his gaze uplifted, he said suddenly: "I suppose it'll hold water?" "What? The roof of the car?" "No. The will." Mr. Softly Bishop gave a short laugh, but made no other answer.
Prohack had been in easier circumstances; but those circumstances, thanks to the ambitions of statesmen and generals, and to the simplicity of publics, had gradually changed from easy to distressed. He saw with terrible clearness from what fate the Angmering miracle had saved him and his. He wanted to reconstruct society in the interest of those to whom no miracle had happened.
Of course he knew that two-thirds of the imaginative literature of the world was based on, and illustrative of, this great human discovery, and therefore that he was not exactly a pioneer. No matter! He was a pioneer all the same. "Do you remember a fellow named Angmering?" he began, on a note of the closest confiding intimacy a note which always flattered and delighted his wife. "Yes."
Prohack ought to have been resuming his ill-remunerated financial toil for the nation at the Treasury, Bishop suggested in his offhand murmuring style that they might pay a visit to the City solicitor who was acting in England for him and the Angmering estate. Mr. Prohack opposingly suggested that national duty called him elsewhere.
She was just as if dead. Her hand was as cold as the hand of a corpse. Such was Mr. Prohack's vast experience of life that he had not the least idea what to do in this crisis. But he tremendously regretted that Angmering, Bishop, and the inventor of the motor-car had ever been born. He rushed out on to the landing and loudly shouted: "Machin! Machin!
"What was he like?" "Wasn't he the man that started to run away with Ronnie Philps' wife and thought better of it and got her out of the train at Crewe and put her into the London train that was standing at the other platform and left her without a ticket? Was it Crewe or Rugby I forget which?" "No, no. You're all mixed up. That wasn't Angmering." "Well, you have such funny friends, darling.
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