At half-past five he got up and dressed for dinner, and the evening passed very pleasantly--so pleasantly, indeed, that Georgy was half inclined to wish that her husband might be afflicted with chronic influenza, whereby he would be compelled to stop at home.

She sighed when Philip Sheldon slapped his friend's broad shoulder, and told him cheerily that he would be "all right to-morrow." He would be well again, and there would be more midnight roistering, and she would be again tormented by that vision of lighted halls and beautiful diabolical creatures revolving madly to the music of the Post-horn Galop.
It seemed, however, that poor jealous Mrs.Halliday was to be spared her nightly agony for some time to come.

Tom's cold lasted longer than he had expected, and the cold was succeeded by a low fever--a bilious fever, Mr.Sheldon said.

There was not the least occasion for alarm, of course.

The invalid and the invalid's wife trusted implicitly in the friendly doctor who assured them both that Tom's attack was the most ordinary kind of thing; a little wearing, no doubt, but entirely without danger.