"Sorry, Mr. Tennant, to hear you are unwell--really grieved. I can only hope that it is nothing serious."
His impudence was a little more than even I could stand. I let him see it.
"What the dickens do you mean, sir, by entering my bedroom?"
In reply, he only smiled the more.
"My dear sir, I am here out of pure consideration for you. When I heard of your ill-health, I could not bear the thought of subjecting you to the inconvenience of coming down to me. So, instead, I came to you."
"Then, having come, perhaps you would be so good as, at once, to go again."
He turned towards me with a movement of his eyebrows, as if to express surprise.
"Gently, sir! Surely you presume upon the presence of a lady. Is that the way in which you should speak to me? I have no desire to keep you. My business with you ought not to detain me more than half a minute."
He seated himself on a chair, which he drew up towards the fire. Placing his hat upon his knee, he began to smooth the nap with his gloved hand. Unbearable though I felt his insolence to be, I saw that, unless I employed actual violence, I should not be able to induce him to budge. I looked at my wife. I should not have minded so much if she had not been there. I had borne with the fellow's insolence before; I might have borne with it again. But I was conscious that Lucy's eye was upon me, and that, unreasonably enough, she was expecting me to show the sort of stuff of which I was made. I say that this attitude of hers was an unreasonable attitude, because, what could she expect of a man who was recovering from a severe attack of illness, and whose nervous system was a shattered wreck. I temporised.
"What do you want with me?"