Rossiter met him half-way, shook hands cordially and introduced him to his wife who bowed with one of her "sweet" looks. For the moment David did not interest her. She was much more interested in trying to give an impression of profundity to Lady Feenix who was commenting on the professor's discoveries of the strange properties of the thyroid gland. A few introductions were effected—Lady Towcester, Lady Flower, Miss Knipper-Totes, Lady Dombey, Mr. Lacrevy, Professor Ray Lankester, Mr. and Mrs. Gosse—and naturally for the most part David only half caught their names while they, without masking their indifference, closed their ears to his ("Some student or other from his classes, I suppose—rather nicely dressed, rather too good-looking for a young man"); and Rossiter, who had been interrupted first by Mrs. Rossiter asking him to observe that Lady Dombey had nothing on her plate, and secondly by David's entrance, resumed his discourse. Goodness knew that he didn't want to discourse on these occasions, but Society expected it of him. There were quite twenty—twenty-two—people present and most of them—all the women—wanted to go away and say four hours afterwards:
"We were (I was) at the Rossiters this afternoon, and the Professor was fascinating" ("great," "profoundly interesting," "shocking, my dear," "scandalous," "disturbing," "illuminating," "more-than-usually-enthralling-only-she-would-keep-interrupting-why-is-she-such-a-fool?") according to the idiosyncrasy of the diner-out. "He talked to us about the thyroid gland—I don't believe poor Bob's got one, between ourselves—and how if you enlarged it or reduced it you'd adjust people's characters to suit the needs of Society; and all about chimpanzi's blood—I believe he vivisects half through the night in that studio behind the house—being the same as ours; and then Ray Lankester and Chalmers Mitchell argued about the cæca—cæcums, you know—something to do with appendicitis—of the mammalia, and altogether we had a high old time—I always learn something on their Thursdays."
Well: Rossiter resumed his description of an experiment he was making—quite an everyday one, of course, for there were at least three men present to whom he wasn't going to give away clues prematurely. An experiment on the motor biallaxis of dormice.
[Mrs. Rossiter had six months previously bought a dormouse in a cage at a bazaar, and after idolizing it for a week had forgotten all about it. Her husband had rescued it half starved; his assistant had fed it up in the laboratory, and they had tried a few experiments on it with painless drugs with astonishing results.]
The recital really was interesting and entirely outside the priggishness of Science, but it was marred in consecutiveness and simplicity by Mrs. Rossiter's interruptions. "Michael dear, Lady Dombey's cup!" Or: "Mike, could you cut that cake and hand it round?" Or, if she didn't interrupt her husband she started stories and side-issues of her own in a voice that was quite distinctly heard, about a new stitch in crochet she had seen in the Queen, or her inspection of the East Marrybone soup kitchen.
However when all had taken as much tea and cakes and marrons glacés as they cared for—David was so shy that he had only one cup of tea and one piece of tea-cake—the large group broke up into five smaller ones. The few gradually converged, and dropping all nonsense discussed biology like good 'uns, David listening eager-eyed and enthralled at the marvels just beginning to peep out of the dissecting and vivisecting rooms and chemical laboratories in the opening years of the Twentieth century. Then one by one they all departed; but as David was going too Rossiter detained him by a kindly pressure on the arm—a contact which sent a half-pleasant, half-disagreeable thrill through his nerves.
"Don't hurry away unless you really are pressed for time. I want to show you some of my specimens and the place where I work."
David followed him—after taking his leave of Mrs. Rossiter who accepted his polite sentences—a little stammered—with a slightly pompous acquiescence—followed him to the library and then through a curtained door down some steps into a great studio-laboratory, provided (behind screens) with washing places, and full of mysteries, with cupboards and shelves and further rooms beyond and a smell of chloride of lime combined with alcoholic preservatives and undefined chemicals. After a tour round this domain in which David was only slightly interested—for lack of the right education and imagination—so far he—or—she had only the mind of a mathematician—Rossiter led him back into the library, drew out chairs, indicated cigarettes—even whiskey and soda if he wanted it—David declined—and then began to say what was at the back of his mind:—
"We met first in the train, the South Wales Express, you remember? I fancy you told me then that you had been in South Africa, in this bungled war, and had been either wounded or ill in some way. In fact you went so far as to say you had had 'necrosis of the jaw,' a thing I politely doubted because whatever it was it has left no perceptible scar. Of course it's damned impertinent of me to cross-examine you at all, or to ask why you went to and why you left South Africa. But I don't mind confessing you inspire me with a good deal of interest.
"Now the other day—as you know—I made the acquaintance of your father in Wales—at Pontystrad. I told him I had shown a young fellow some of those Gower caves and how his name was—like your father's, 'Williams.' Of course we soon came to an understanding. Then your father spoke of you in high praise. What a delightful nature was yours, how considerate and kind you were—don't blush, though I admit it becomes you—Well you can pretty well guess how he went on. But what interested me particularly was his next admission: how different you were as a lad—rather more than the ordinary wild oats—eh? And how completely an absence in South Africa had changed you. You must forgive my cheek in dissecting your character like this. My excuse is that you yourself had rather vaguely referred to some wound or blood poisoning or operation, on the jaw or the throat. Not to beat about the bush any more, the idea came into my mind that if in some way the knife or the enemy's bullet had interfered with your thyroid gland—Twig what I mean? I mean, that if your old man has not been exaggerating and that the difference between the naughty boy whom he sent up to London in—what was it? 1896?—and the perfectly behaved, good sort of chap that you are now is no more than what usually happens when young men lose their cubbishness, why—why—do you take me?—I ask myself whether the change had come about through some interference with the thyroid gland. Do you understand? And I thought, seeing how intensely interesting this research has become, you might have told me more about it. Just what did happen to you; where you were wounded, who attended to you, what operation was performed on the throat—only the rum thing is there seems to be no scar—well: now you help me out, that is unless you feel more inclined to say, 'What the hell does it matter to you?'"...