He became grave again. “I suppose I ought to apologize.”
Dr. Martineau weighed the situation. “As between doctor and patient,” he said. “No.”
“Oh!” said Sir Richmond, turned to a new point of view. “But where the patient ends and the host begins.... I’m really very sorry.” He reverted to his original train of thought which had not concerned Dr. Martineau at all. “After all, the little car was only doing what she was made to do.”
Section 2
The affair of the car effectively unsealed Sir Richmond’s mind. Hitherto Dr. Martineau had perceived the possibility and danger of a defensive silence or of a still more defensive irony; but now that Sir Richmond had once given himself away, he seemed prepared to give himself away to an unlimited extent. He embarked upon an apologetic discussion of the choleric temperament.
He began as they stood waiting for the relief car from the Maidenhead garage. “You were talking of the ghosts of apes and monkeys that suddenly come out from the darkness of the subconscious....”
“You mean—when we first met at Harley Street?”
“That last apparition of mine seems to have been a gorilla at least.”
The doctor became precise. “Gorillaesque. We are not descended from gorillas.”
“Queer thing a fit of rage is!”