have a nap. Bring up hot water at half-past six and
shave me before dinner."
The valet moved towards the door. Swithin raised himself.
"What did Mr. James say to you?"
"He said you ought to have another doctor; two doctors, he said, better
than one. He said, also, he would look in again on his way 'home.'"
Swithin grunted, "Umph! What else did he say?"
"He said you didn't take care of yourself."
Swithin glared.
"Has anybody else been to see me?"
The valet turned away his eyes. "Mrs. Thomas Forsyte came last Monday
fortnight."
"How long have I been ill?"
"Five weeks on Saturday."
"Do you think I'm very bad?"
Adolf's face was covered suddenly with crow's-feet. "You have no
business to ask me question like that! I am not paid, sir, to answer
question like that."
Swithin said faintly: "You're a peppery fool! Open a bottle of
champagne!"
Adolf took a bottle of champagne--from a cupboard and held nippers to
it. He fixed his eyes on Swithin. "The doctor said--"
"Open the bottle!"
"It is not--"
"Open the bottle--or I give you warning."
Adolf removed the cork. He wiped a glass elaborately, filled it, and
bore it scrupulously to the bedside. Suddenly twirling his moustaches,
he wrung his hands, and burst out: "It is poison."
Swithin grinned faintly. "You foreign fool!" he said. "Get out!"
The valet vanished.
'He forgot himself!' thought Swithin. Slowly he raised the glass, slowly
put it back, and sank gasping on his pillows. Almost at once he fell
asleep.
He dreamed that he was at his club, sitting after dinner in the crowded
smoking-room, with its bright walls and trefoils of light. It was there
that he sat every evening, patient, solemn, lonely, and sometimes fell
asleep, his square, pale old face nodding to one side. He dreamed that
he was gazing at the picture over the fireplace, of an old statesman
with a high collar, supremely finished face, and sceptical eyebrows--the
picture, smooth, and reticent as sealing-wax, of one who seemed for ever
exhaling the narrow wisdom of final judgments. All round him, his fellow
members were chattering. Only he himself, the old sick member, was
silent. If fellows only knew what it was like to sit by yourself and
feel ill all the time! What they were saying he had heard a hundred
times. They were talking of investments, of cigars, horses, actresses,
machinery. What was that? A foreign patent for cleaning boilers? There
was no such thing;
|