Читать книгу Mr. Prohack - Arnold Bennett - Страница 33

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"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?"

"I don't know—any more than I know why you went out before dinner and came back after dinner."

"Would you like to know why I went out?" Sissie spoke with sudden ingratiatingness.

"No, not at all. But I should like to know why you went out without telling anybody. When people are expected to dinner and fail to appear they usually give notice of the failure."

"But, father, I told Machin."

"I said 'anybody.' Don't you know that the whole theory of the society which you adorn is based on the assumption that Machin is nobody?"

"I was called away in a frightful hurry, and you and mother were gossiping upstairs, and it's as much as one's life is worth to disturb you two when you are together."

"Oh! That's news."

"Besides, I should have had to argue with mother, and you know what she is."

"You flatter me. I don't even know what you are, and you're elementary compared to your mother."

"Anyhow, I'm glad mother's in bed with a headache. I came in here trembling just now. Mother would have made such a tremendous fuss although she's perfectly aware that it's not the slightest use making a fuss. … Only makes me stupid and obstinate. Showers and showers of questions there'd have been, whereas you haven't asked a single one."

"Yes, you're rather upset by my lack of curiosity. But let me just point out that it is not consistent with my paternal duty to sit here and listen to you slanging your mother. As a daughter you have vast privileges, but you mustn't presume on them. There are some things I couldn't stand from any woman without protest."

"But you must admit that mother is a bit awful when she breaks loose."

"No. I've never known your mother awful, or even a bit awful."

"You aren't being intellectually honest, dad."

"I am."

"Ah! Well, of course she only shows her best side to you."

"She has no other side. In that sense she is certainly one-sided. Here! Have another." Mr. Prohack took the apple from his pocket, and threw it across the table to Sissie, who caught it.