He treated him like a child.
By Friday it could not be denied that the illness was no longer an attack that would pass off in a day or two; it was a real illness that required a good deal of organisation, and engrossed the attention of at least five people, but there was no reason to be anxious.

Instead of lasting five days it was going to last ten days.

Rodriguez was understood to say that there were well-known varieties of this illness.
Rodriguez appeared to think that they were treating the illness with undue anxiety.

His visits were always marked by the same show of confidence, and in his interviews with Terence he always waved aside his anxious and minute questions with a kind of flourish which seemed to indicate that they were all taking it much too seriously.

He seemed curiously unwilling to sit down.
"A high temperature," he said, looking furtively about the room, and appearing to be more interested in the furniture and in Helen's embroidery than in anything else.