* * * * *

II

Mr. Prohack's son was, in some respects, a great mystery to him. He
could not understand, for instance, how his own offspring could be so
unresponsive to the attractions of the things of the mind, and so
interested in mere machinery and the methods of moving a living or a
lifeless object from one spot on the earth's surface to another. Mr.
Prohack admitted the necessity of machinery, but an automobile had for
him the same status as a child's scooter and no higher. It was an
ingenious device for locomotion. And there for him the matter ended. On
the other hand, Mr. Prohack sympathised with and comprehended his son's
general attitude towards life. Charlie had gone to war from Cambridge at
the age of nineteen. He went a boy, and returned a grave man. He went
thoughtless and light-hearted, and returned full of magnificent and
austere ideals. Six months of England had destroyed these ideals in him.
He had expected to help in the common task of making heaven in about a
fortnight. In the war he had learnt much about the possibilities of
human nature, but scarcely anything about its limitations. His father
tried to warn him, but of course failed. Charlie grew resentful, then
cynical. He saw in England nothing but futility, injustice and
ingratitude. He refused to resume Cambridge, and was bitterly sarcastic
about the generosity of a nation which, through its War Office, was
ready to pay to studious warriors anxious to make up University terms
lost in a holy war decidedly less than it paid to its street-sweepers.
Having escaped from death, the aforesaid warriors were granted the right
to starve their bodies while improving their minds. He might have had
sure situations in vast corporations. He declined them. He spat on them.
He called them "graves." What he wanted was an opportunity to fulfil
himself. He could not get it, and his father could not get it form him.
While searching for it, he frequently met warriors covered with ribbons
but lacking food and shelter not only for themselves but for their women
and children. All this, human nature being what it is, was inevitable,
but his father could not convincingly tell him so. All that Mr. Prohack
could effectively do Mr. Prohack did,--namely, provide the saviour of
Britain with food and shelter. Charlie was restlessly and dangerously
waiting for his opportunity. But he had not developed into a
revolutionist, nor a communist, no