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Sissie showed more reserve than her mother towards Ozzie; but then Sissie was a proud thing, which Eve never was. Mr. Prohack admitted privately that he was happy yes, he was happy in the betrothal, and he had most solemnly announced and declared that he would have naught to do with the wedding beyond giving a marriage gift to his daughter and giving his daughter to Ozzie.
Nevertheless, when Charles shut the door of the chamber and they were enclosed together, Mr. Prohack could feel his mighty heart beating in a manner worthy of a schoolgirl entering an examination room. The chamber had apparently been taken bodily out of a doll's house and furnished with furniture manufactured for pigmies. It was very full, presenting the aspect of a room in a warehouse.
Prohack was accepting a cigarette, having been told that Ozzie never smoked cigars, when there was a great ring which filled the entire flat as the last trump may be expected to fill the entire earth, and Mr. Prohack dropped the cigarette, muttering: "I think I'll smoke that afterwards." "Good gracious!" the flat mistress exclaimed. "I wonder who that can be. Just go and see, Ozzie, darling."
"I'm dying of hunger, and I've got a real headache now. Oh! Arthur how absurd all this is! At least it would be if I wasn't so hungry." "Sissie ate all the dessert," Mr. Prohack answered timidly. He no longer felt triumphant, careless and free. Indeed for some minutes he had practically forgotten that he had inherited ten thousand a year. "The child ate it every bit, so I couldn't bring any.
"If you think I shall walk about London with sixteen thousand five hundred pounds round my neck you're mistaken." "But I insist! You were a martyr and our marriage was ruined because I didn't give you real pearls. I intend you shall have real pearls." "But not these," said Eve. "It's too much. It's a fortune." "I am aware of that," Mr. Prohack agreed.
Charlie was taciturn and curt, though not impolite. Mr. Prohack, whose private high spirits not even the amazing and inexcusable absence of his daughter could impair, pretended to a decent woe, and chatted as he might have done to a fellow-clubman on a wet Sunday night at the Club.
"We haven't reached the lunch yet," Mr. Prohack replied. "We must go and buy a safe first. There's no safe worth twopence in the house, and a really safe safe is essential. And I want it to be clearly understood that I shall keep the key of that safe. We aren't playing at necklaces now. Life is earnest."
It has no name. Besides, I like you English. You are terrible, but one can count on you.... Vous y êtes?" "J'y suis," replied Mr. Prohack, ravished. Lady Massulam in her agitation picked up the tumbler and sipped. "Pardon!" she cried, aghast. "It is yours," and planked the tumbler down again on the lacquered table. Mr. Prohack had the wit to drink also.
Astounding 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.
And when Eve, eager with her important mission, had departed, Mr. Prohack continued to the detective: "Pretty good that, eh, for an improvisation? The key of that drawer isn't on that ring at all. And even if she does manage to open the drawer there's no blue paper in there at all. She'll be quite some time." The detective stared at Mr. Prohack in a way to reduce his facile self-satisfaction.
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