With his coat half off Robert paused to listen.
"You are interfering in something you know nothing whatever about; you can hardly claim that is an intelligent proceeding."
There was no other voice, so he must be talking to someone on the telephone; probably keeping Kevin from getting through, the young idiot.
"I am not infatuated with anyone. I never have been infatuated with anyone. It is you who are infatuated-with ideas. You are being extremely silly, as I said before…. You are taking the part of an unbalanced adolescent in a case you know nothing about; I should have thought that was sufficient evidence of infatuation…. You can tell your father from me that there is nothing Christian about it, just unwarranted interference. I'm not sure it isn't incitement to violence…. Yes, last night…. No, all their windows broken, and things painted on their walls…. If he is so interested in justice he might do something about that. But your lot are never interested in justice, are they? Only in injustice…. What do I mean by your lot? Just what I say. You and all your crowd who are for ever adopting good-for-nothings and championing them against the world. You wouldn't put out a finger to keep a hard-working little man from going down the drain, but let an old lag lack the price of a meal and your sobs can be heard in Antarctica. You make me sick…. Yes, I said you make me sick…. Cat-sick. Sick to my stomach. I retch!"
And the bang of the receiver on its rest indicated that the poet had said his say.
Robert hung up his coat in the cupboard and went in. Nevil with a face like thunder was pouring himself out a stiff whisky.
"I'll have one too," Robert said. "I couldn't help overhearing," he added. "That wasn't Rosemary, by any chance?"
"Who else? Is there anyone else in Britain capable of an ineffable silliness like that?"
"Like what?"
"Oh, didn't you hear that bit? She has taken up the cause of the persecuted Betty Kane." Nevil gulped some whisky, and glared at Robert as if Robert were responsible.