Mr. Prosser concluded an animated conversation with a waiter on the subject of the wines of France, leaned forward and, having helped himself briskly to anchovies, began to talk. He talked loudly and rapidly. Owen, his thoughts far away, hardly listened.
Presently the waiter returned with the selected brand. He filled Owen’s glass, and Owen drank, and felt better. Finding his glass magically full once more, he emptied it again. And then suddenly he found himself looking across the table at his host, and feeling a sense of absolute conviction that this was the one man of all others whom he would have selected as a confident. How kindly, though somewhat misty, his face was! How soothing, if a little indistinct, his voice!
“Prosser,” he said, “you are a man of the world, and I should like your advice. What would you do in a case like this? I go to a theatre to see a play, and what do I find?”
He paused, and eyed his host impressively.
“What’s that tune they’re playing?” said Mr. Prosser. “You hear it everywhere. One of those Viennese things, I suppose.”
Owen was annoyed. He began to doubt whether, after all, Mr. Prosser’s virtues as a confidant were not more apparent than real.
“I find, by Jove,” he continued, “that I wrote the thing myself.”
“It’s not a patch on ‘The Merry Widow,’ ” said Mr. Prosser.
Owen thumped the table.
“I tell you I find I wrote the thing myself.”
“What thing?”
“This play I’m telling you about. This White Roses thing.”
He found that he had at last got his host’s ear. Mr. Prosser seemed genuinely interested.
“What do you mean?”
Owen plunged into his story. He started from its dim beginning, from the days when he had bought the novel on his journey from Bath to Cheltenham. He described his methods of work, his registering of the package, his suspense, his growing resignation. He sketched the progress of his life. He spoke of Audrey and gave a crisp character-sketch of Mr. Sheppherd. He took his hearer right up to the moment when the truth had come home to him.
Towards the end of his narrative the lights went out, and he finished his story in the hotel courtyard. In the cool air he felt revived. The outlines of Mr. Prosser became sharp and distinct again.
The sociologist listened admirably. He appeared absorbed, and did not interrupt once.
“What makes you so certain that this was your version?” he asked, as they passed into the Strand.
Owen told him of the creature of his imagination in Act III.
“But you have lost your manuscript?”
“Yes; I burnt it.”