"Time for me to be in bed," growled Hippias, as if everybody present had been treating him badly.
Mrs. Berry came in to apprise Lucy that she was wanted above. She quietly rose. Sir Austin kissed her on the forehead, saying: "You had better not come down again, my child." She kept her eyes on him. "Oblige me by retiring for the night," he added. Lucy shook their hands, and went out, accompanied by Mrs. Doria.
"This agitation will be bad for the child," he said, speaking to himself aloud.
Lady Blandish remarked: "I think she might just as well have returned.
She will not sleep."
"She will control herself for the child's sake."
"You ask too much of her."
"Of her, not," he emphasized.
It was twelve o'clock when Hippies shut his watch, and said with vehemence: "I'm convinced my circulation gradually and steadily decreases!"
"Going back to the pre-Harvey period!" murmured Adrian as he wrote.
Sir Austin and Lady Blandish knew well that any comment would introduce them to the interior of his machinery, the eternal view of which was sufficiently harrowing; so they maintained a discreet reserve. Taking it for acquiescence in his deplorable condition, Hippies resumed despairingly: "It's a fact. I've brought you to see that. No one can be more moderate than I am, and yet I get worse. My system is organically sound—I believe: I do every possible thing, and yet I get worse. Nature never forgives! I'll go to bed."