“There is a difference.”
“And it affects your respective views throughout,” added Professor Fortescue, “for if the paint theory be correct, then it is true that to know one’s fellows is impossible, you can only know the upper coat; whereas if the truth lies in varnish, the substance of the nature is revealed to you frankly, if you have eyes to trace the delicacies of the markings, which tell the secrets of sap and fibre, of impetus and check: all the inner marvels of life and growth that go forward in that most botanic thing, the human soul.”
“Professor Fortescue is eloquent, but he makes one feel distressingly vegetable,” said Temperley.
“Oh! not unless one has a human soul,” Lady Engleton reassured him.
“Am I to understand that you would deprive me of mine?” he asked, with a courtly bow.
“Not at all; souls are private property, or ought to be.”
“I wish one could persuade the majority of that!” cried Professor Fortescue.
“Impossible,” said Theobald. “The chief interest of man is the condition of his neighbour’s soul.”
“Could he not be induced to look after his own?” Hadria demanded.
“All fun would be over,” said Professor Fortescue.