"Why not?"
Charlie looked at his watch.
"Well, I'm much obliged," he said.
III
Mr. Prohack had brought a new cheque-book from the Bank. It lay in his hip-pocket. He had no alternative but to write out a cheque. Three hundred pounds would nearly exhaust his balance, but that did not matter. He gave Charlie the cheque. Charlie offered no further information concerning the "affair" for which the money was required.
And Mr. Prohack did not choose to enquire. Perhaps he was too proud to enquire. The money would probably be lost. And if it were lost no harm would be done. Good, rather, for Charlie would have gained experience.
The lad was only a child, after all.
The lad ran upstairs, and Mr. Prohack sat solitary in delightful meditation. After a few minutes the lad re-appeared in hat and coat. Mr.
Prohack thought that he had heard a bag dumped in the hall.
"Where are you off to?" he asked.
"Glasgow. I shall catch the night-train."
He rang the bell.
"Machin, run out and get me a taxi, sharp."
"Yes, sir." Machin flew. This was the same girl of whom Mrs. Prohack dared to demand nothing. Mr. Prohack himself would have hesitated to send her for a taxi. But Charlie ordered her about like a slave and she seemed to like it.
"Rather sudden this, isn't it?" said Mr. Prohack, extremely startled by the turn of events.
"Well, you've got to be sudden in this world, guv'nor," Charlie replied, and lit a fresh cigarette.
Mr. Prohack was again too proud to put questions. Still, he did venture upon one question:
"Have you got loose money for your fare?"
The lad laughed. "Oh, don't let that worry you, guv'nor...!" He looked at his watch once more. "I wonder whether that infernal girl is manufacturing that taxi or only fetching it."
"What must I say to your mother?" demanded Mr. Prohack.
"Give her my respectful regards."
The taxi was heard. Machin dashed into the house, and dashed out again with the bag. The lad clasped his father's hand with a warm vigour that pleased and reassured Mr. Prohack in his natural bewilderment. It was not consistent with the paternal dignity to leave the dining-room and stand, valedictory, on the front-doorstep.
"Well, I'm dashed!" Mr. Prohack murmured to himself as the taxi drove away. And he had every right to be dashed.
CHAPTER VI
SISSIE
I
"Had any dinner?" Mr. Prohack asked his daughter.
"No."
"Aren't you hungry?"
"No, thanks."
Sissie seized the last remaining apple from the dessert-dish, and bit into it with her beautiful and efficient teeth. She was slim, and rather taller than necessary or than she desired to be. A pretty girl, dressed in a short-skirted, short-sleeved, dark blue, pink-heightened frock that seemed to combine usefulness with a decent perverse frivolity, and to carry forward the expression of her face. She had bright brown hair. She was perfectly mistress of the apple.
"Where's mother?"
"In bed with a headache."
"Didn't she have dinner with you?"
"She did not. And she doesn't want to be disturbed."
"Oh! I shan't disturb her, poor thing. I told her this afternoon she would have one of her headaches."
"Well," said Mr. Prohack, "that's one of the most remarkable instances of sound prophecy that I ever came across."
"Father, what's amusing you?"
"Nothing."
"Yes, something is. You've got your funny smile, and you were smiling all to yourself when I came in."
"I was thinking. My right to think is almost the only right I possess that hasn't yet been challenged in this house."
"Where's Charles?"
"Gone to Glasgow."
"Gone to _Glasgow_?"
"Yes."
"What, just now?"
"Ten minutes ago."
"Whatever has he gone to _Glasgow_ for?"