Edith Wharton

“ A knock disturbed him. The old parlour-maid who was always left in charge of the house had come up to ask if he wasn't well, and if there was anything she could do for him. He told her no ... he was perfectly well ... or, rather, no, he wasn't ... he supposed it must be the heat; and he began to scold her for having forgotten to close the shutters.
It wasn't her fault, it appeared, but Eliza's: her tone implied that he knew what one had to expect of Eliza ... and wouldn't he go down to the nice cool shady dining-room, and let her make him an iced drink and a few sandwiches? ”

“ The blindness within him seemed to have intensified his physical perceptions, his sensitiveness to the heat, the noise, the smells of the dishevelled midsummer city; but combined with the acuter perception of these offenses was a complete indifference to them, as though he were some vivisected animal deprived of the power of discrimination. ”

“ Marvell I couldn't turn my back for a second but what Eliza'd find a way to make trouble," the old woman continued, evidently glad of the chance to air a perennial grievance. "It's not only the things she FORGETS to do," she added significantly; and it dawned on Ralph that she was making an appeal to him, expecting him to take sides with her in the chronic conflict between herself and Eliza. ”