"A good deal. They supply me with work, which they don't want me to do,
in order to keep me from sponging on my wife. They are admirable men.
They represent the sanity and decency of the world pronouncing judgment
on the fact. No Brodrick ever blinked a fact. When people ask the
Brodricks, What does that fellow Prothero do? they shrug their shoulders
and say, 'He has visions, and his wife pays for them.'"
"But I don't. It's the public that pays for them. And your wife has a
savage joy in making it pay. If it wasn't for that I should loathe my
celebrity more than Jinny ever loathed hers. It makes me feel sillier."
"Poor little thing," said Prothero.
"Well--it's hard that _I_ should have to entertain imbeciles who
wouldn't read _you_ if they were paid."
He knew that that was the sting of it for her.
"They're all right," he said. "It's your funny little humour that they
like. I like it, too."
But Laura snapped her teeth and said, "Damn! Damn my humour! Well--when
they use it as a brickbat to hurl at your head."
She quoted furiously, "'While her husband still sings to deaf ears, Mrs.
Prothero has found the secret of capturing her public. She has made her
way straight to its heart. And the heart of Mrs. Prothero's public is
unmistakably in the right place.' Oh--if Mrs. Prothero's public knew
what Mrs. Prothero thinks of it. I give them what they want, do I? As if
I gave it them because they want it. If they only knew why I give it,
and how I'm fooling them all the time! How I make them pay--for _you_!
Just think, Owen, of the splendid, the diabolical irony of it!"
"So very small," he murmured, "and yet so fierce."
"Just think," she went on, "how I'm enjoying myself."
"Just think," said Prothero, "how I am not."
"Then" (she returned it triumphantly), "you're paying for my enjoyment,
which is what you want."
The clock struck six. She went out of the room, and returned, bringing
an overcoat which she said had grown miles too big for him. She warmed
it at the fire and helped him on with it, and disappeared for a moment
under its flapping wings, so large was that overcoat.
All the way to Fleet Street, Prothero, wrapped in his warm overcoat,
meditated tenderly on his wife's humour.