The Prophet of Berkeley Square. Robert Hichens
Читать онлайн книгу.
the thought of this so long foregone enchantment Malkiel’s emotion completely overcame him, his voice died away, overborne by a violent fit of choking, and he sat back in his cane chair trembling in every limb. The Prophet was deeply moved by his emotion, and longed most sincerely to assuage it. But his deep and growing conviction of his own power rendered him useless as a comforter. He could not lie. He could not deny that he was a prophet. He could only say, in his firmest voice—
“Malkiel the Second, be brave. You must see this thing through.”
On hearing these original and noble words Malkiel lifted up his marred countenance.
“I know it, sir, I know it,” he answered. “One moment. The thought of Madame—the Stores—I—of all that might perhaps have been—”
He choked again. The Prophet looked away. A strong man’s emotion is always very scared and very terrible. Three minutes swept by, then the Prophet heard a calm and hollow voice say—
“And now, sir, to business.”
The Prophet looked up, and perceived that Malkiel’s overcoat was tightly buttoned and that his mouth was tightly set in an expression of indomitable, though tragic, resolution.
“What business?” asked the Prophet.
“Mine,” replied Malkiel. “Mine, sir, and yours. You have chosen to enter my life. You cannot deny that. You cannot deny that I sought to avoid—I might even say to dodge you.”
With the remembrance of the recent circus performance in the library still strong upon him the Prophet could not. He bowed his head.
“Very well, sir. You have chosen to enter my life. That act has given me the right to enter yours. Am I correct?”
“I suppose—I mean—yes, you are,” answered the Prophet, overwhelmed by the pitiless logic of his companion, and wondering what was coming next.
“I have been forced—I think I may say that—to reveal myself to you, sir. Nothing can ever alter that. Nothing can ever take from you the knowledge—denied by Madame to the very architects—of who I really am. You have told me, sir, that I must see this thing through. I tell you now, at this table, in this parlour, that I intend to see it through—and through.”
As Malkiel said the last words he gazed at the Prophet with eyes that seemed suddenly to have taken on the peculiar properties of the gimlet. The Prophet began to feel extremely uneasy. But he said nothing. He felt that there was more to come. And he was right.
“It is my duty,” continued Malkiel, in a louder voice, “my sacred duty to Madame—to say nothing of Corona and Capricornus—to probe you to the core”—here the Prophet could not resist a startled movement of protest—“and to search you to the quick.”
“Oh, really!” cried the Prophet.
“This duty I shall carry out unflinchingly,” pursued Malkiel, “at whatever cost to myself. This will not be our last interview. Do not think it.”
“I assure you,” inserted the Prophet, endeavouring vainly to seem at ease, “I do not wish to think it.”
“It matters little whether you wish to do so or not,” continued Malkiel, with an increasingly Juggernaut air. “The son of Malkiel the First is not a man to be trifled with or dodged. Moreover, much more than the future of myself and family depends upon what you really are. From this day forth you will be bound up with the Almanac.”
“Merciful Heavens!” ejaculated the Prophet, unable, intrepid as he was, to avoid recoiling when he found himself thus suddenly confronted with the fate of an appendix.
“For why should it ever cease?” proceeded Malkiel, with growing passion. “Why—if a prophet can live, as you declare, freely and openly in the Berkeley Square? If this is so, why should I not remove, along with Madame and family, from the borders of the Mouse and reside henceforth in a central situation such as I should wish to reside in? Why should not Capricornus eventually succeed me in the Almanac as I succeeded Malkiel the First? Already the boy shows the leanings of a prophet. Hitherto Madame and I have endeavoured to stifle them, to turn them in an architectural direction. You understand?”
“I am trying to,” stammered the Prophet.
“Hitherto we have corrected the boy’s table manners when they have become too like those of the average prophet—as they often have—for hitherto we have had reason to believe that all prophets—with the exception of myself—were dirty, deceitful and essentially suburban persons. But if you are a prophet we have been deceived. Trust me, sir, I shall find speedy means to pierce you to the very marrow.”
The Prophet began mechanically to feel for his hat.
“Are you desirous of anything, sir?” said Malkiel, sharply.
“No,” said the Prophet, wondering whether the moment had arrived to throw off all further pretence of bravery and to shout boldly for the assistance of the young librarian.
“Then why are you feeling about, sir? Why are you feeling about?”
“Was I?” faltered the Prophet.
“You are looking for another glass of wine, perhaps?”
“No, indeed,” said the Prophet, desperately. “For anything but that.”
But Malkiel, moved by some abruptly formed resolution, called suddenly in a powerful voice—
“Frederick Smith!”
“Here, Mr. Sagittarius!” cried the young librarian, appearing with suspicious celerity upon the parlour threshold.
“Draw the cork of the second bottle, Frederick Smith,” said Malkiel, impressively. “This gentleman is about to take the pledge”—on hearing this ironic paradox the Prophet stood up, very much in the attitude formerly assumed by Malkiel when about to dodge in the library—“that I shall put to him,” concluded Malkiel, also standing up, and assuming the library posture of the Prophet.
Indeed the situation of the library seemed about to be accurately reversed in the parlour of Jellybrand’s.
The young librarian assisted the cork to emerge phlegmatically from the neck of the second bottle of champagne, mechanically smacking his lips the while.
“Now pour, and leave us, Frederick Smith.”
The young librarian helped the fatigued-looking wine into the two glasses, where it lay as if thoroughly exhausted by the effort of getting there, and then languidly left the parlour, turning his bulging head over his shoulder to indulge in a pathetic oeillade ere he vanished.
The Prophet watched him go.
“Close the door, Frederick Smith,” cried Malkiel, in a meaning manner.
The Prophet blushed a guilty red, and the young librarian obeyed with a bang.
“And now, sir, I must request you to take a solemn pledge in this vintage,” said Malkiel, placing one of the tumblers in the Prophet’s trembling hand.
“Really,” said the Prophet, “I am not at all thirsty.”
“Why should you be, sir? What has that got to do with it?” retorted Malkiel. “Lift your glass, sir.”
The Prophet obeyed.
“And now take this pledge—that, till the last day—”
“What day?”
“The last day, sir, you will reveal to no living person that there is such an individual as Malkiel, that you have ever met him, who he is, or who Madame and family are, unless I give the word. You have surprised my secret. You have forced yourself upon me. You owe me this. Drink!”
Mechanically the Prophet drank.
“Swear!”