“Well, to be frank, I had a rather serious hæmorrhage of the lungs a week and a half ago ... my chest has always been weak, you know.”
For various reasons Stellan was horrified:
“But your footman did not tell me so. I had not the slightest idea that....”
“Well, I don’t want to advertise my illness.”
“What does the medicine man say?”
“He shakes his head and says that I must lie quiet in bed for the present, only lie quiet.... But dash it all, Stellan, don’t take it so seriously. I myself am rather pleased. I have never been anything but a dilettante. But this will perhaps be my opportunity. A real danger! An honest compulsion! Sometimes I feel as if I would really be able to do something after all. Oh, there is a curious excitement in the fever and the imminence of death.”
Stellan was just pondering how best in these circumstances he might decorously prepare Percy for the comparative relief to be derived from backing a bill for five thousand. Then a head with fair straggling hair and broad good-natured features peeped in through the door and disappeared again with a smile of apology at the sight of Stellan. It was the nurse. There were red spots in Percy’s cheeks and his voice sounded worried and nervous:
“If you knew how I suffer from that woman,” he whispered. “She is not at all unkind to me. On the contrary. But I can’t stand people with that sort of stolid face. I shiver when she touches me.”
“Why don’t you send her away?”
“No, it is so difficult. I can’t bring myself to do it. Once she is here she has certain claims on me.”