“Sir,” I said; “come in, please; that window’s dangerous!”
“God bless me!” he said, turning round. “What does all this mean? Am I in a private lunatic asylum?”
“No, sir,” I said. “Pray be calm, sir. Come, sit down; you’re not very well. Mr. Saxon will be here directly.”
He sat down, and looked at me, with such a strange look on his face, that I felt he had been let out too soon, and I made up my mind to advise Mr. Saxon to send him back. It wasn’t safe to have an only half-cured lunatic about the place.
“Go out of the room, if you please, madam,” he said. “I think it is very great impertinence on your part to come in without being asked.”
“No, sir,” I said; “I shall not leave you in your present condition, and if you make any resistance I shall call my husband. Now be a good, kind creature, and sit still till Mr. Saxon comes in.”
“God bless me,” he said, “am I mad? What does it mean? I—I—confound it, Saxon” (Mr. Saxon had come in), “what sort of a place is this that you’ve asked me to? Is it an hotel, or an asylum for idiots? This woman is certainly mad!”
“Poor gentleman!” I thought, “they always think it’s you and not them that’s mad.”
Mr. Saxon looked at me and then at his friend, and then he burst out laughing.
I don’t know what put it into my head; but it came like a flash that I’d been “had,” as Harry calls it.