"Do you mean to tell me—" Eve began, and it was a new Eve.
"Of course I do!" said Mr. Prohack, who had now thoroughly subdued his temper in the determination to bring to a head that trouble about the necklace and end it for ever. He was continuing his remarks when the wall suddenly fell down with an unimaginable crash. Eve said nothing, but the soundless crash deafened Mr. Prohack. Nevertheless the mere fact that Sissie's wedding lay behind and not before him, helped him somewhat to keep his spirits and his nerve.
"I will never forgive you, Arthur!" said Eve with the most solemn and terrible candour. She no longer played a part; she was her formidable self, utterly unmasked and savagely expressive without any regard to consequences. Mr. Prohack saw that he was engaged in a mortal duel, with the buttons off the deadly foils.
"Of course you won't," said he, gathering himself heroically together, and superbly assuming a calm which he did not in the least feel. "Of course you won't, because there is nothing to forgive. On the contrary, you owe me your thanks. I never deceived you. I never told you the pearls were genuine. Indeed I beg to remind you that I once told you positively that I would never buy you a pearl necklace,—don't you remember? You thought they were genuine, and you have had just as much pleasure out of them as if they had been genuine. You were always careless with your jewellery. Think how I should have suffered if I had watched you every day being careless with a rope of genuine pearls! I should have had no peace of mind. I should have been obliged to reproach you, and as you can't bear to be reproached you would have picked quarrels with me. Further, you have lost nothing in prestige, for the reason that all our friends and acquaintances have naturally assumed that the pearls were genuine because they were your pearls and you were the wife of a rich man. A woman whose husband's financial position is not high and secure is bound to wear real pearls because people will assume that her pearls are false. But a woman like yourself can wear any pinchbeak pearls with impunity because people assume that her pearls are genuine. In your case there could be no advantage whatever in genuine pearls. To buy them would be equivalent to throwing money in the street. Now, as it is, I have saved money over the pearls, and therefore interest on money, though I did buy you the very finest procurable imitations! And think, my child, how relieved you are now,—oh, yes! you are, so don't pretend the contrary: I can deceive you, but you can't deceive me. You have no grievance whatever. You have had many hours of innocent satisfaction in your false jewels, and nobody is any the worse. Indeed my surpassing wisdom in the choice of a necklace has saved you from all further worry about the loss of the necklace, because it simply doesn't matter either one way or the other, and I say I defy you to stand there and tell me to my face that you have any grievance at all."
Mr. Prohack paused for a reply, and he got it.
"I will never forgive you as long as I live," said Eve. "Let us say no more about it. What time is that awful lunch that you've arranged with that dreadful Bishop man? And what would you like me to wear, please?" In an instant she had rebuilt the wall, higher than ever.
Mr. Prohack, always through the wall, took her in his arms and kissed her. But he might as well have kissed a woman in a trance. All that could be said was that Eve submitted to his embrace, and her attitude was another brilliant illustration of the fact that the most powerful oriental tyrants can be defied by their weakest slaves, provided that the weakest slaves know how to do it.
"You are splendid!" said Mr. Prohack, admiringly, conscious anew of his passion for her and full of trust in the virtue of his passion to knock down the wall sooner or later. "But you are a very naughty and ungrateful creature, and you must be punished. I will now proceed to punish you. We have much to do before the lunch. Go and get ready, and simply put on all the clothes that have cost the most money. They are the clothes fittest for your punishment."
Three-quarters of an hour later, when Mr. Prohack had telephoned and sent a confirmatory note by hand to his bank, Carthew drove them away southwards, and the car stopped in front of the establishment of a very celebrated firm of jewellers near Piccadilly.
"Come along," said Mr. Prohack, descending to the pavement, and drew after him a moving marble statue, richly attired. They entered the glittering shop, and were immediately encountered by an expectant salesman who had the gifts of wearing a frock-coat as though he had been born in it, and of reading the hearts of men. That salesman saw in a flash that big business was afoot.