I thought this very convincing and attentive. He had taken me in up to that point about the light, he had certainly taken me in.
“You see me confused,” he said, returning to his place—“on my word of honour, Mr. Fairlie, you see me confused in your presence.”
“Shocked to hear it, I am sure. May I inquire why?”
“Sir, can I enter this room (where you sit a sufferer), and see you surrounded by these admirable objects of Art, without discovering that you are a man whose feelings are acutely impressionable, whose sympathies are perpetually alive? Tell me, can I do this?”
If I had been strong enough to sit up in my chair I should, of course, have bowed. Not being strong enough, I smiled my acknowledgments instead. It did just as well, we both understood one another.
“Pray follow my train of thought,” continued the Count. “I sit here, a man of refined sympathies myself, in the presence of another man of refined sympathies also. I am conscious of a terrible necessity for lacerating those sympathies by referring to domestic events of a very melancholy kind. What is the inevitable consequence? I have done myself the honour of pointing it out to you already. I sit confused.”
Was it at this point that I began to suspect he was going to bore me? I rather think it was.
“Is it absolutely necessary to refer to these unpleasant matters?” I inquired. “In our homely English phrase, Count Fosco, won’t they keep?”
The Count, with the most alarming solemnity, sighed and shook his head.
“Must I really hear them?”