'It was very unfair of Mr Griffenberg to catch Charles out on the birds and fishes. They're very important to him.'
'That's what I like about him,' said Verschoyle. 'Things are important to him. Nothing is important to the rest of us.'
'Some of them will resign from the committee,' said Clara. 'I hope you won't. It is a great pity, because Charles does mean it so thoroughly.'
Verschoyle screwed in his eye-glass and held his knee and rocked it to and fro. He was shrewd enough to see that if he resigned the whole committee would break up, and he knew that this dreadful eventuality was in Clara's mind also. He liked Charles's extravagance: it made him feel wicked, but also he was kind and could not bring himself to hurt Clara. He had never in his life felt that he was of the slightest importance to any one. Clara felt that sense stirring in him and she fed it; let him into the story of their struggles and the efforts she had made to bring her idealist to London, and urged upon him the vital importance of Charles's work.
'They're all jealous of him,' she said, 'all these people who have never been heard of outside London. It was just like them to fasten on a thing like that.'
Verschoyle laughed.
'I like the idea of birds and fishes in London,' he said. 'I think we need them.... Now, if it were you, Mrs Mann'—for he had been so introduced to her—'I would back you through everything.'
'It is me,' said Clara. 'It always is a woman. If it were not for me we should not be in London now.'
'You must bring him to dinner with me.'
Clara accepted in her eagerness to save the situation without realising that she had compromised herself.