“Lord love you, I'd have thought nothing of it! I'm the best-natured fellow breathing. What was it she said?”
“I don't know how I can repeat them.”
“Oh, I see, they reflect on me. My dear young friend, when you live to my age you will learn that anything can be said to anybody, provided it only be done by 'the third party.' Whatever the law rejects as evidence, assumes in social life the value of friendly admonition. Go on, and tell me who it is is in love with my wife.”
Cool as Mr. Cholmondely Balfour was, the tone of this demand staggered him.
“Art thou the man, Balfour?” said Sewell at last, staring at him with a mock frown.
“No, by Jove! I never presumed that far.”
“It's the sick fellow, then, is the culprit?”
“So his mother opines. She is an awful woman! I was sitting with your wife in the small drawing-room when she burst into the room and cried out, 'Mrs. Sewell, is your name Lucy? for, if so, my son has been rambling on about you this last hour in a wonderful way: he has told me about fifty times that he wants to see you before he dies; and now that the doctor says he is out of danger he never ceases talking of dying. I suppose you have no objection to the interview; at least they tell me you were constantly in his room before my arrival.”
“How did my wife take this?—what did she say?” asked Sewell, with an easy smile as he spoke.
“She said something about agitation or anxiety serving to excuse conduct which otherwise would be unpardonable; and she asked me to send her maid to her,—as I think, to get me away.”