"I have not seen you for a long time," he said, pointing to a chair and sinking back into his own.
"No," Pateley replied. "I was very sorry to hear that you had been ill. You are looking rather bad still."
"And feeling so," Sir William said wearily. "The worst of influenza is that one feels just as bad when one is supposed to be getting better as when one is supposed to be getting worse. It is a most annoying form of complaint."
"So I have understood," said Pateley, "though I have not learnt it by personal experience."
"No, you don't look as though you suffered from weakness," said Sir William, with a faint smile and a consciousness that this was not a person from whom it would be very easy to extract sympathy for his own condition.
Pateley paused. He felt curiously uncomfortable and hesitating, a sensation somewhat novel to him. Sir William leant back in his chair, trying to control the trembling of his hands, of which one held the Mayfair Gazette, the smaller paper still concealed underneath it.
"I see," Pateley said, "you are reading the evening paper. Not very good reading, is it? Things look pretty bad."
"They do indeed," said Sir William.
"It looks uncommonly like war with Germany," Pateley said; "prices are tumbling down headlong on the Stock Exchange. I believe there is going to be something very like a panic."