"Indeed! Then you must excuse this old velvet coat. If I"d had notice of the solemnity of your visit, my dear Morfey, I"d have met you in a dinner jacket. May I just put one question? Have you kissed Sissie already?"
"I--er--have."
"By force or by mutual agreement?"
"Neither."
"She made no protest?"
"No."
"The reverse rather?"
"Yes."
"Then why do you come here to me?"
"To get your consent."
"I suppose you arranged with Sissie that you should come here?"
"Yes, I did. We thought it would be best if I came alone."
"Well, all I can say is that you"re a very old-fashioned pair. I"m afraid that you must have forgotten to alter your date calendar when the twentieth century started. Let me a.s.sure you that this is not by any means the nineteenth. I admit that I only altered my own date calendar this afternoon, and even then only as the result of an unusual dream."
"Yes?" said Ozzie politely, and he said nothing else, but it seemed to Mr. Prohack that Ozzie was thinking: "This queer old stick is taking advantage of his position to make a fool of himself in his queer old way."
"Let us examine the circ.u.mstances," Mr. Prohack proceeded. "You want to marry Sissie. Therefore you respect her. Therefore you would not have invited her to marry unless you had been reasonably sure that you possessed the brains and the material means to provide for her physical and moral comfort not merely during the next year but till the end of her life. It would be useless, not to say impolite, for me to question you as to your situation and your abilities, because you are convinced about both, and if you failed to convince me about both you would leave here perfectly sure that the fault was mine and not yours, and you would pursue your plans just the same. Moreover, you are a man of the world--far more a man of the world than I am myself--and you are unquestionably the best judge of your powers to do your duty towards a wife. Of course some might argue that I, being appreciably older than you, am appreciably wiser than you and that my opinion on vital matters is worth more than yours. But you know, and perhaps I know too, that in growing old a man does not really become wiser; he simply acquires a different sort of wisdom--whether it is a better or a worse sort n.o.body can decide. All we know is that the extremely young and the extremely old are in practice generally foolish. Which leads you nowhere at all.
But looking at history we perceive that the ideas of the moderately young have always triumphed against the ideas of the moderately old. And happily so, for otherwise there could be no progress. Hence the balance of probability is that, a.s.suming you and I were to differ, you would be more right than I should be."
"But I hope that we do not differ, sir," said Ozzie. And Mr. Prohack found satisfaction in the naturalness, the freedom from pose, of Ozzie"s diffident and disconcerted demeanour. His sympathy for the young man was increased by the young man"s increasing consternation.
"Again," resumed Mr. Prohack, ignoring Ozzie"s hope. "Take the case of Sissie herself. Sissie"s education was designed and superintended by myself. The supreme aim of education should be to give sound judgment in the great affairs of life, and moral stamina to meet the crises which arrive when sound judgment is falsified by events. If I were to tell you that in my opinion Sissie"s judgment of you as a future husband was unsound, it would be equivalent to admitting that my education of Sissie had been unsound. And I could not possibly admit such a thing. Moreover, just as you are a man of the world, so Sissie is a woman of the world.
By heredity and by natural character she is sagacious, and she has acquainted herself with all manner of things as to which I am entirely ignorant. Nor can I remember any instance of her yielding, from genuine conviction, to my judgment when it was opposed to hers. From all which it follows, my dear Morfey, that your mission to me here this evening is a somewhat illogical, futile, and unnecessary mission, and that the missioner must be either singularly old-fashioned and conventional--or laughing in his sleeve at me. No!" Mr. Prohack with a nineteenth century wave of the hand deprecated Ozzie"s interrupting protest. "No! There is a third alternative, and I accept it. You desired to show me a courtesy.
I thank you."
"But have you no questions to ask me?" demanded Ozzie.
"Yes," said Mr. Prohack. "How did you first make the acquaintance of my daughter?"
"Do you mean to say you don"t know? Hasn"t Sissie ever told you?"
"Never. What is more, she has never mentioned your name in any conversation until somebody else had mentioned it. Such is the result of my educational system, and the influence of the time-spirit."
"Well, I"m dashed!" exclaimed Ozzie sincerely.
"I hope not, Morfey. I hope not, if by dashed you mean "d.a.m.ned.""
"But it was the most wonderful meeting, Mr. Prohack," Ozzie burst out, and he was in such an enthusiasm that he almost forgot to lisp. "You knew I was in M.I. in the war, after my trench fever."
"M.I., that is to say, Secret Service."
"Yes. Secret Service if you like. Well, sir, I was doing some work in the East End, in a certain foreign community, and I had to get away quickly, and so I jumped into a motor-van that happened to be pa.s.sing.
That van was driven by Sissie!"
"An example of fact imitating fiction!" remarked Mr. Prohack, seeking, not with complete success, to keep out of his voice the emotion engendered in him by Ozzie"s too brief recital. "Now that"s one question, and you have answered it brilliantly. My second and last question is this: Are you in love with Sissie--"
"Please, Mr. Prohack!" Ozzie half rose out of his chair.
"Or do you love her? The two things are very different."
"I beg your pardon, sir. I hadn"t quite grasped," said Ozzie apologetically, subsiding. "I quite see what you mean. I"m both."
"You are a wonder!" Mr. Prohack murmured.
"Anyway, sir, I"m glad you don"t object to our engagement."
"My dear Oswald," said Mr. Prohack in a new tone. "Do you imagine that after my daughter had expressed her view of you by kissing you I could fail to share that view. You have a great opinion of Sissie, but I doubt whether your opinion of her is greater than mine. We will now have a little whiskey together."
Ozzie"s chubby face shone as in his agreeable agitation he searched for the eye-gla.s.s ribbon that was not there.
"Well, sir," said he, beaming. "This interview has not been at all like what I expected."
"Nor like what I expected either," said Mr. Prohack. "But who can foresee the future?" And he added to himself: "Could I foresee when I called this youth a perfect a.s.s that in a very short time I should be receiving him, not unpleasantly, as a prospective son-in-law? Life is marvellous."
At the same moment Mrs. Prohack entered the room.
"Oh!" cried she, affecting to be surprised at the presence of Ozzie.
"Wife!" said Mr. Prohack, "Mr. Oswald Morfey has done you the honour to solicit the hand of your daughter in marriage. You are staggered!
"How ridiculous you are, Arthur!" said Mrs. Prohack, and impulsively kissed Ozzie.
VI
The wedding festivities really began the next evening with a family dinner to celebrate Sissie"s betrothal. The girl arrived magnificent from the Grand Babylon, escorted by her lover, and found Mrs. Prohack equally magnificent--indeed more magnificent by reason of the pearl necklace. It seemed to Mr. Prohack that Eve had soon become quite used to that marvellous necklace; he had already had to chide her for leaving it about. Ozzie also was magnificent; even lacking his eye-gla.s.s and ribbon he was magnificent. Mr. Prohack, esteeming that a quiet domestic meal at home demanded no ceremony, had put on his old velvet, but Eve had sharply corrected his sense of values--so shrewishly indeed that n.o.body would have taken her for the recent recipient of a marvellous necklace at his hands--and he had yielded to the extent of a dinner-jacket. Charlie had not yet come. Since the previous afternoon he had been out of town on mighty enterprises, but Sissie had seen him return to the hotel before she left it, and he was momently expected.
Mr. Prohack perceived that Eve was treating Ozzie in advance as her son, and Ozzie was responding heartily: a phenomenon which Mr. Prohack in spite of himself found agreeable. 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. And when Sissie said that as neither she nor Ozzie had much use for the state of being merely engaged the wedding would occur very soon, Mr. Prohack rejoiced at the prospect of the upset being so quickly over. After the emotions and complications of the wedding he would settle down to simplicity,--luxurious possibly, but still simplicity: the plain but perfect. And let his fortune persist in acc.u.mulating, well it must acc.u.mulate and be hanged to it!
"But what about getting a house?" he asked his daughter.
"Oh, we shall live in Ozzie"s flat," said Sissie.
"Won"t it be rather small?"
"The smaller the better," said Sissie. "It will match our income."
"Oh, my dear girl," Eve protested, with a glance at Mr. Prohack to indicate that for the asking Sissie could have all the income she wanted. "And I"ll give you an idea," Eve brightly added. "You can have _this_ house rent free."