"So did I," said Brodrick. He turned to Jane. "Your friend Prothero does
not observe the rule of punctuality."
"If they won't turn up in time," said Henry, "I should dine without
them."
They did dine ultimately. Prothero turned up at a quarter to nine,
entering with the joint. Laura was not with him. Laura couldn't, he
said, "get off."
He was innocent and unconscious of offence. They were not to bring back
the soup or fish. Roast mutton was enough for him. He expected he was a
bit late. He had been detained by Tanqueray. Tanqueray had just come
back.
Involuntarily Brodrick looked at Jane.
Prothero had to defend her from a reiterated charge of neurosis brought
against her by Henry, who observed with disapproval her rejection of
roast mutton.
Over coffee and cigarettes Prothero caught him up and whirled him in a
fantastic flight around his favourite subject.
There were cases, he declared, where disease was a higher sort of
health. "Take," he said, "a genius with a pronounced neurosis. His body
may be a precious poor medium for all ordinary purposes. But he couldn't
have a more delicate, more lyrical, more perfectly adjusted instrument
for _his_ purposes than the nervous system you call diseased."
When he had gone Henry shook off the discomfort of him with a gesture.
"I've no patience with him," he said.
"He wouldn't expect you to have any," said Jane. "But you've no idea of
the patience he would have with _you_."
She herself was conscious of a growing exasperation.
"I've no use for him. A man who deliberately constructs his own scheme
of the universe, in defiance," said Henry, "of the facts."
"Owen couldn't construct a scheme of anything if he tried. Either he
sees that it's so, or he feels that it's so, or he knows that it's so,
and there's nothing more to be said. It's not a bit of good arguing with
him."
"I shouldn't attempt to argue with him, any more than I should argue
with a lunatic."
"You consider him a lunatic, do you?"
"I consider him a very bad neurotic."
"If you can't have genius without neurosis," said Jane, "give me
neurosis. You needn't look at me like that, Henry. I know you think I've
got it."
"My dear Jane----"
"You wouldn't call me your dear Jane if you didn't."
"We're wandering from the point. I think all I've ever said was that
Prothero may be as great a poet, and as neurotic as you please, but he's
nothing of a physiologist, nor, I should imagine, of a physician."
"There you're wrong. He did splendid work out in Africa and India. He's
got as good a record as you have in your own profession. It's no use
your looking as if you wished he hadn't, for he has."
"You mistake me. I am delighted to hear it. In that case, why doesn't he
practise, instead of living on his wife?"
"He doesn't live on her. His journalism pays for his keep--if we're
going to be as vulgar as all that."
Jinny was in revolt.
"I imagine all the same," said John, "that Prothero's wife is
considerably the better man."
"She'd hate you if she knew you'd said so."
"Prothero's wife," said Henry, "is a lady for whom I have the very
highest admiration. But Prothero is impossible. _Im_--possible."
Jane left the room.