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 countenance, but Mr. Prohack was thunderstruck. She was bringing forward considerations which positively 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 intrigue. Mr. Prohack, however, was not intimidated. 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 delightfully 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 Privy Purse." New line. "I am also to state that no account of expenditure 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 inst.i.tuted by your company against Miss Mimi Winstock, and to my claim against your company under my accident policy. I have seen the defendant. 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 decided to settle the matter privately. Please therefore accept this letter as a release from all your liabilities to me, and also as my personal undertaking 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 aspiring nose and your ruthless little lips and your gift for conspiracy 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 confidential secretary. And when I say "confidential" I mean "confidential" in the fullest sense."
"Oh, quite," Miss Warburton concurred almost pa.s.sionately.
"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 peculiar. 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 loyalty, 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 dint of opening parcels, had transformed the bedroom into a composite of the princ.i.p.al men"s shops in Piccadilly and Bond Street. Mr. Prohack recoiled before the chromatic show and also before the prospect 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 conceal or adorn. What are you laughing at, Miss Warburton?"
"You are so amusing, Mr. Prohack."
"I may be amusing, but I am not susceptible to the flattery of giggling.
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 dictate a few more letters."
"Certainly."
When he had finished dictating, 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 grievances and to their love-affairs."
Mr. Prohack, though fatigued, felt himself to be inordinately 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 intervals 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 descended, wearing one or two of the more discreet of his new possessions, and with the sensation of having already transacted a good day"s work, into the breakfast-room and found Miss Warburton and Machin in converse. Machin feverishly poked 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 gla.s.s-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 personalities. 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 circ.u.mvented. In a word, the present is a moment when I may need the unscrupulous services of an utterly devoted confidential secretary."