Nalaczi laughed and went out.
Teleki sank back exhausted on his pillows, and made his page rub the back of his neck violently with a piece of flannel.
At that instant the Prince entered. His face was wrath, and all because of his sympathy. He began scolding Teleki on the very threshold.
"Why don't you lie down when I command you? Does it beseem a grown-up man like you to be as disobedient as a capricious child? Why don't you send for the doctor; why don't you be blooded?"
"There is nothing the matter with me, your Highness. It is only a little hæmorrhoidalis alteratio. I am used to it. It always plagues me at the approach of the equinoxes."
"Ai, ai, Michael Teleki, you don't get over me. You are very ill, I tell you. Your mental anxiety has brought about this physical trouble. Does it become a Christian man, I ask, to take on so because my little friend Flora cannot have one particular man out of fifteen wooers, and a fellow like Emeric, too—a mere dry stick of a man."
"I don't give it any particular importance."
"You are a bad Christian, I tell you, if you say that. You love neither God nor man; neither your family, nor me——"
"Sir!" said Teleki, in a supplicating voice.
"For if you did love us, you would spare yourself and lie down, and not get up again till you were quite well again."