"You great geniuses ought not to marry, any more than lunatics. The law ought to provide for it. Genius, in either party, if you can establish the fact, should annul the contract, like—like any other crucial disability."
"Or," Jane amended, "why not make the marriage of geniuses a criminal act, like suicide? You can always acquit them afterwards on the ground of temporary insanity."
"How would you deal," said Brodrick suddenly, "with mixed marriages?"
"Mixed——?" Caro feigned bewilderment.
"When a norm—an ordinary—person marries a genius? It's a racial difference."
("Distinctly," Caro murmured.)
"And wouldn't it be hard to say which side the lunacy was on?"
Laura would have suspected him of a bitter personal intention had it not been so clear that Jinny's genius was no longer in question, that her flame was quenched.
It was Caro who asked (in the drawing-room, afterwards) if they might see the children.
Gertrude went up-stairs to fetch them. Eddy Heron watched her softly retreating figure, and smiled and spoke.