He was innocent and unconscious of offence. They were not to bring back the soup or fish. Roast mutton was enough for him. He expected he was a bit late. He had been detained by Tanqueray. Tanqueray had just come back.
Involuntarily Brodrick looked at Jane.
Prothero had to defend her from a reiterated charge of neurosis brought against her by Henry, who observed with disapproval her rejection of roast mutton.
Over coffee and cigarettes Prothero caught him up and whirled him in a fantastic flight around his favourite subject.
There were cases, he declared, where disease was a higher sort of health. "Take," he said, "a genius with a pronounced neurosis. His body may be a precious poor medium for all ordinary purposes. But he couldn't have a more delicate, more lyrical, more perfectly adjusted instrument for his purposes than the nervous system you call diseased."
When he had gone Henry shook off the discomfort of him with a gesture.
"I've no patience with him," he said.
"He wouldn't expect you to have any," said Jane. "But you've no idea of the patience he would have with you."
She herself was conscious of a growing exasperation.
"I've no use for him. A man who deliberately constructs his own scheme of the universe, in defiance," said Henry, "of the facts."