She told him what she knew. Prothero was, as Tanqueray saw, an unlicked Celt. He had been, if Tanqueray would believe it, in the Indian Medical Service, and had flung it up before he got his pension. He had been to British Central Africa on a commission for investigating sleeping sickness; he spoke of it casually as if it were the sort of thing you naturally were on. He had volunteered as a surgeon in the Boer War. And with it all he was what Tanqueray saw.
"And his address?" Tanqueray inquired.
"He lives here."
"Why shouldn't he?" He answered her challenging eyes. They shot light at him.
"He is a great poet? I was right?"
"Absolutely. He's great enough for anybody. How on earth did you get hold of him?"
She was silent. She seemed to be listening for the sound of Prothero's feet on the stair.
He was soon with them, bringing his sheaf of manuscript. He had brought all he had got. The chanting began again and continued till the light failed.
And as Tanqueray listened the restless, irritable devilry passed from his face. Salient, thrust forward toward Prothero, it was the face of a winged creature in adoration, caught suddenly into heaven, breasting the flood of the supernal light. For Tanqueray could be cruel in his contempt for all clevernesses and littlenesses, for all achievements that had the literary taint; but he was on his knees in a moment before the incorruptible divinities. He had the immortal's scent for immortality.
When the chanting ceased they talked.