III
"I _know_ we can't afford any more for housekeeping," she whispered,sniffing damply. "And I'm ashamed I can't manage, and I knew I shouldmake you unhappy. What with idle and greedy working-men, and all theseprofiteers...! It's a shame!"
"Yes," said Mr. Prohack. "It's what our Charlie fought for, and gotwounded twice for, and won the M.C. for. That's what it is. But you seewe're the famous salaried middle-class that you read so much about inthe papers, and we're going through the famous process of being crushedbetween the famous upper and nether millstones. Those millstones havebeen approaching each other--and us--for some time. Now they've begun tonip. That funny feeling in your inside that's causing you still tobaptise me, in spite of my protest--that's the first real nip."
She caught her breath.
"Arthur," she said. "If you go on like that I shall scream."
"Do," Mr. Prohack encouraged her. "But of course not too loud. At thesame time don't forget that I'm a humourist. Humourists make jokes whenthey're happy, and when they're unhappy they make jokes."
"But it's horribly serious."
"Horribly."
Mrs. Prohack slipped off the arm of the chair. Her body seemed tovibrate within the Chinese gown, and she effervesced into an ascendingand descending series of sustained laughs.
"That's hysteria," said Mr. Prohack. "And if you don't stop I shall bereluctantly compelled to throw the coffee over you. Water would bebetter, but there is none."
Then Eve ceased suddenly.
"To think," she remarked with calmness, "that you're called the Terrorof the Departments, and you're a great authority on finance, and you'vebeen in the Government service for nearly twenty-five years, and alwaysdone your duty--"
"Child," Mr. Prohack interrupted her. "Don't tell me what I know. Andtry not to be surprised at any earthly phenomena. There are people whoare always being astonished by the most familiar things. They live onearth as if they'd just dropped from Mars on to a poor foreign planet.It's not a sign of commonsense. You've lived on earth now for--shall wesay?--some twenty-nine or thirty years, and if you don't know the placeyou ought to. I assure you that there is nothing at all unusual in ourcase. We are perfectly innocent; we are even praiseworthy; and yet--weshall have to suffer. It's quite a common case. You've read of thousandsand millions of such cases; you've heard of lots personally; and you'veactually met a few. Well, now, you yourself _are_ a case. That's all."
Mrs. Prohack said impatiently:
"I consider the Government's treated you shamefully. Why, we're muchworse off than we were before the war."
"The Government has treated me shamefully. But then it's treatedhundreds of thousands of men shamefully. All Governments do."
"But we have a position to keep up!"
"True. That's where the honest poor have the advantage of us. You see,we're the dishonest poor. We've been to the same schools anduniversities and we talk the same idiom and we have the same manners andlike the same things as people who spend more in a month or a week thanwe spend in a year. And we pretend, and they pretend, that they and weare exactly the same. We aren't, you know. We're one vast pretence. Hasit occurred to you, lady, that we've never possessed a motor-car andmost certainly never shall possess one? Yet look at the hundreds ofthousands of cars in London alone! And not a single one of them ours!This detail may have escaped you."
"I wish you wouldn't be silly, Arthur."
"I am not silly. On the contrary, my real opinion is that I'm the wisestman you ever met in your life--not excepting your son. It remains thatwe're a pretence. A pretence resembles a bladder. It may burst. Weprobably shall burst. Still, we have one great advantage over the honestpoor, who sometimes have no income at all; and also over the rich, whonever can tell how big their incomes are going to be. _We know exactlywhere we are_. We know to the nearest sixpence."
"I don't see that that helps us. I consider the Government has treatedyou shamefully. I wonder you important men in the Treasury haven'tformed a Trade Union before now."
"Oh, Eve! After all you've said about Trade Unions this last year! Youshock me! We shall never he properly treated until we do form a TradeUnion. But we shall never form a Trade Union, because we're too proud.And we'd sooner see our children starve than yield in our pride. That'sa fact."
"There's one thing--we can't move into a cheaper house."
"No," Mr. Prohack concurred. "Because there isn't one."
Years earlier Mr. Prohack had bought the long lease of his house fromthe old man who, according to the logical London system, had built thehouse upon somebody else's land on the condition that he paid rent forthe land and in addition gave the house to the somebody else at the endof a certain period as a free gift. By a payment of twelve pounds perannum Mr. Prohack was safe for forty years yet and he calculated that inforty years the ownership of the house would be a matter of someindifference both to him and to his wife.
"Well, as you're so desperately wise, perhaps you'll kindly tell me whatwe _are_ to do."
"I might borrow money on my insurance policy--and speculate," said Mr.Prohack gravely.
"Oh! Arthur! Do you really think you--" Marian showed a wild gleam ofhope.
"Or I might throw the money into the Serpentine," Mr. Prohack added.
"Oh! Arthur! I could kill you. I never know how to take you."
"No, you never do. That's the worst of a woman like you marrying a manlike me."
They discussed devices. One servant fewer. No holiday. Cinemas insteadof theatres. No books. No cigarettes. No taxis. No clothes. No meat. Notelephone. No friends. They reached no conclusion. Eve referred toAdam's great Treasury mind. Adam said that his great Treasury mindshould function on the problem during the day, and further that theproblem must be solved that very night.
"I'll tell you one thing I shall do," said Mrs. Prohack in a decidedtone as Mr. Prohack left the table. "I shall countermand Sissie'a newfrock."
"If you do I shall divorce you," was the reply.
"But why?"
Mr. Prohack answered:
"In 1917 I saw that girl in dirty overalls driving a thundering greatvan down Whitehall. Yesterday I met her in her foolish high heels andher shocking openwork stockings and her negligible dress and her exposedthroat and her fur stole, and she was so delicious and so absurd and sofutile and so sure of her power that--that--well, you aren't going tocountermand any new frock. That chit has the right to ruin me--notbecause of anything she's done, but because she _is_. I am ready tocommit peccadilloes, but not crimes. Good morning, my dove."
And at the door, discreetly hiding her Chinese raiment behind the door,Eve said, as if she had only just thought of it, though she had beenthinking of it for quite a quarter of an hour:
"Darling, there's your clubs."
"What about my clubs?"
"Don't they cost you a lot of money?"
"No. Besides I lunch at my clubs--better and cheaper than at anyrestaurant. And I shouldn't have time to come home for lunch."
"But do you need two clubs?"
"I've always belonged to two clubs. Every one does."
"But why _two_?"
"A fellow must have a club up his sleeve."
"_Couldn't_ you give up one?"
"Lady, it's unthinkable. You don't know what you're suggesting. Abandonone of my clubs that my father put me up for when I was a boy! I'd assoon join a Trade Union. No! My innocent but gluttonous children shallstarve first."
"I shall give up _my_ club!"
"Ah! But that's different."
"How is it different?" "You scarcely ever speak to a soul in your club.The food's bad in your club. They drink liqueurs before dinner at yourclub. I've seen 'em. Your club's full every night of the most formidablespinsters each eating at a table alone. Give up your club by all means.Set fire to it and burn it down. But don't count the act as arenunciation. You hate your club. Good morning, my dove."
IV
One advantage of the situation of Mr. Prohack's house was that his
paththerefrom to the Treasury lay almost entirely through verdantparks--Hyde Park, the Green Park, St. James's Park. Not infrequently hereferred to the advantage in terms of bland satisfaction. True, in wetweather the advantage became a disadvantage.
During his walk through verdant parks that morning, the Terror of theDepartments who habitually thought in millions was very gloomy.Something resembling death was in his heart. Humiliation also wascertainly in his heart, for he felt that, no matter whose the fault, hewas failing in the first duty of a man. He raged against the Chancellorof the Exchequer. He sliced off the head of the Chancellor of theExchequer with his stick. (But it was only an innocent autumnwildflower, perilously blooming.) And the tang in the air foretold theapproach of winter and the grip of winter--the hell of the poor.
Near Whitehall he saw the advertisement of a firm of shop-specialists:
"BRING YOUR BUSINESS TROUBLES TO US."
CHAPTER II
FROM THE DEAD
I
Mr. Prohack Page 2