"There, I knew you'd caught cold. You oughtn't to go standing about in draughts."
"I haven't caught cold," said Mr. Waddington.
But he shut himself up in his library and stayed there, huddled in his armchair. From time to time he leaned forward and stooped over the hearth, holding his chest and stomach as near as possible to the fire. Shivers like thin icicles kept on slipping down his spine.
At lunch-time he complained that there was nothing he could eat, and before the meal was over he went back to his library and his fire. Fanny sat with him there.
"I wish you wouldn't go standing out in the cold," she said. She knew that on Saturday he had stood for more than ten minutes in the fallen snow of the park to be photographed. And he wouldn't wear his overcoat because he thought he looked younger without it, and slenderer.
"No wonder you've got a chill," she said.
"I didn't get it then. I got it yesterday in the garden."
She remembered. He had been wandering about the garden, after church, looking for snowdrops in the snow. Barbara had worn the snowdrops in the breast of her gown last night.
He nourished his resentment on that memory and on the thought that he had got his chill picking snowdrops for Barbara.
At tea-time he drank a little tea, but he couldn't eat anything. He felt sick and his head ached. At dinner-time, on Fanny's advice, he went to bed and Fanny took his temperature.