“I had as good answers in my mind as any that have been made here to-day.”
“And yet you didn’t give them?”
“No; I didn’t give them.”
“Perhaps you felt—though you knew your objections to be good ones—that it was hardly worth while to take the trouble of putting them into words? In short, you let your friends answer for you, rather than make the effort of answering for yourself?”
Geoffrey looked at his medical adviser with a sudden curiosity and a sudden distrust.
“I say,” he asked, “how do you come to know what’s going on in my mind—without my telling you of it?”
“It is my business to find out what is going on in people’s bodies—and to do that it is sometimes necessary for me to find out (if I can) what is going on in their minds. If I have rightly interpreted what was going on in your mind, there is no need for me to press my question. You have answered it already.”
He turned to Sir Patrick next
“There is a side to this subject,” he said, “which you have not touched on yet. There is a Physical objection to the present rage for muscular exercises of all sorts, which is quite as strong, in its way, as the Moral objection. You have stated the consequences as they may affect the mind. I can state the consequences as they do affect the body.”
“From your own experience?”