The Duke opened his eyes. Not even Sir Bernard Vanbrugh’s reputation for originality—eccentricity it is called in Government departments—had prepared him for such a proposition. But any momentary irritation was quickly swallowed up in the comforting reflection: What sort of reception would this man give to Alistair!
“I am at your disposal, Sir Bernard!”
The physician began his methodical examination exactly as if he were dealing with an ordinary patient. He weighed the Cabinet Minister, he measured him, he took his pulse and temperature, and sounded his heart and lungs. As test after test was applied the examiner did not conceal his interest and satisfaction, and at the close of the ordeal his manner became almost enthusiastic.
“I can congratulate you,” he reported, “on being an almost perfect life—I may say, a remarkable life. Do you know that you are as nearly as possible a normal man?”
The twelfth subject of the Queen looked ever so slightly disconcerted by the compliment.
“You don’t understand, I see,” said Vanbrugh. “I must explain to you that scientific anthropologists have arrived at certain standards of bodily proportion, of the energy of the vital functions, and so on, which they have fixed as constituting the norm of humanity—that is to say, the perfect balance which ought to be found in every member of the species. The normal man is therefore a scientific abstraction: he is the imaginary type with which actual individuals are to be compared, and to which they should as far as possible conform. Now I find that you fulfil to an extraordinary degree every requirement which anthropological science has laid down for the species. You are, therefore, a normal man—the first I have ever been fortunate enough to come across.”
The Duke of Trent tried to persuade himself that this was a flattering report, though in his ear the word “normal” sounded disagreeably like commonplace.
“At all events, you are satisfied?” he asked.
“I am more than satisfied so far. Now as to your family history——”
For the first time a misgiving stole into the Duke’s mind, as he remembered Lord Alexander Stuart’s career. Surely this scientific inquisitor was not going to visit the sins of the father on the son, as his words foreboded?