"It very often does so when one is not well."
"Not well! I'm well enough, man alive. But I think I must have caught a little cold at the ball last night," rejoined the Marchese, striving hard to speak in his usual manner.
The lawyer, whose eyes had by this time become accustomed to the diminished light, looked hard at his old friend from beneath his great shaggy black eye-brows, with a shrewdly examining glance, and then slightly shook his head.
"Well, I daresay you'll be all right again in a day or two. But any way, I am glad you sent for me all the same. These things have to be done, you know. And a man does not die a bit the sooner for doing them. For my part, I always advise my friends to have all such matters settled while they are in health."
"What, in Heaven's name, are you talking about? I don't know what you mean," said the Marchese, with an angry irritability that was totally unlike his usual manner. "I sent for the lawyer; and you come and talk to me as if you wanted to play the doctor."
"I assure you, Signor Marchese, I have not the slightest desire to play any part but my own. And that I am perfectly ready to enter on. I am ready to take your instructions, and will draw up the instrument to-morrow or the next day. Thank God there is no cause for hurry. And that is one of the advantages of arranging all testamentary dispositions while we are in health. My own will, Signor Marchese, has been made these ten years."
"What is that to me? I may make my will ten years hence, and yet get it done in quite as good time as you have, Signor Fortini. Pray allow me to judge for myself, when I think it right to make my will. I have usually been able to manage my own affairs." He spoke with a degree of anger and petulance, jumping up from his chair, and taking a turn to the window and back again, which seemed to conquer the shivering fit from which he had been suffering.
"Manage your own affairs, Signor Marchese! Who would dream of interfering with your management of them? But did you not send for me to make your will?" said the lawyer, standing also.
"Send for you to make my will! No devil told you I wanted to make my will? I said nothing about making my will."
"I beg your pardon, Signor Marchese. Perhaps I jumped at a conclusion over hastily. I thought it a wise thing to do, and so imagined that you were going to do it;—that's all. Let us say no more about it. What commands have you then to give me?"