She found Hugh closeted with Henry in the library where invariably the
doctor lingered. Brodrick made a sign to his brother-in-law as she
entered.
"Well," he said, "you've had your talk."
"Oh yes, we've had it."
She lay back in her seat as if exhausted by hard physical exercise,
supporting the limp length of her arms on the sides of the chair.
The doctor, after a somewhat prolonged observation of her posture,
remarked that she should make a point of going to bed at ten.
Brodrick pleaded the Birthday of the Book. And at the memory of the
intolerable scene, and of Tanqueray's presence in it, her agony broke
out.
"Don't talk about it. I don't want ever to hear of it again."
"What's he been saying to you?" said Brodrick.
"He'd no need to say anything. Do you suppose I don't know? Can't you
see how awful it is for me?"
Brodrick raised the eyebrows of innocence amazed.
"It's as if I'd brought something deformed and horrible into the
world----"
The doctor leaned forward, more than ever attentive.
"And you _would_ go and drag it out, all of you, when I was sitting
there in shame and misery. And before George Tanqueray--How could you?"
"My dear Jinny----"
Brodrick was leaning forward too now, looking at her with affectionate
concern.
Her brother-in-law rose and held out his hand. He detained hers for an
appreciable moment, thoughtfully, professionally.
"I think," he said, "really, you'd better go to bed."
Outside in the hall she could hear him talking to Hugh.
"It's physical, it's physical," he said. "It won't do to upset her. You
must take great care."
The doctor's voice grew mysterious, then inaudible, and she heard Hugh
saying he supposed that it was so; and Henry murmured and mumbled
himself away. Outside their voices still retreated with their footsteps,
down the garden path, and out at the terrace gate. Hugh was seeing Henry
home.
When he came back he found Jane in the library, sitting up for him. She
was excited and a little flushed.
"So you've had _your_ talk, have you?" she said.
"Yes."
He came to her and put his hands on her forehead.
"Look here. You ought to have gone to bed."
She took his hand and drew him to her.
"Henry doesn't think I'm any good," she said.
"Henry's very fond of you."
She shook her head.
"To Henry I'm nothing but a highly interesting neurotic. He watches me
as if he were on the look-out for some abnormal manifestation, with that
delightful air he has of never being surprised at anything, as if he
could calculate the very moment."
"My dear----"
"I'm used to it. My people took me that way, too. Only they hadn't a
scientific turn of mind, like Henry. They didn't think it interesting;
and they haven't Henry's angelic patience and forbearance. I was the
only one of the family, don't you know, who wasn't quite sane; and
yet--so unlike Henry--they considered me rather more responsible than
any of them. I couldn't get off anything on the grounds of my insanity."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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