"It always was difficult to get you off," Jane murmured.
"I know. And I shall feel as if I were keeping him back when he was trying to catch a train."
"I imagine he's pretty sure of his train."
"The truth is Owen doesn't really wait. He's always in his train and out of it, so to speak."
"And your disembodying yourself, darling, is only a question of time."
"And time," said Laura, "doesn't exist for Owen."
But time was beginning to exist for Owen. He felt the pressure of the heavy days that divided him from Laura. He revolted against this tyranny of time.
And Brodrick, the lord of time, remained inexorable for two months.
Long before they were ended, little Laura, with a determination as inexorable as Brodrick's, had left Brodrick's house. To the great disgust and scandal of the Brodricks she had gone back to her rooms in Camden Town, where Prothero was living in the next house with only a wall between them.
Then (it was in the middle of October, when Henry was telling them that Jane must on no account be agitated) Brodrick and Jane nearly quarrelled about Prothero. She said that he was cruel, and that if Owen went into a consumption and Laura died of hunger it would be all his fault. And when he tried to reason gently with her she went off into a violent fit of hysterics. The next day Brodrick had a son born to him, a whole month before Henry had expected anything of the kind.