In the confusion of the breakage Loveland found himself again. Pride came to his rescue—not mere hurt vanity, but a truer pride than had ever made his heart beat high.
As he bent down to pick up the broken plates, he told himself that these people, who had come to plunge him still deeper in humiliating depths, were not worth a pang, and should not see that they had power to inflict it. They had caught him unawares, but he knew the worst now, and would bear it without letting those laughing, curious eyes see how their glances made him suffer.
For one short instant, he detested Mrs. Milton so intensely that he half regretted his vow to spare her name at all hazards; but by the time he had picked up the last piece of broken crockery he knew that, if everything were to come over again, he would do as he had done.
"I take dat out of your wages," said Alexander, loudly enough to be heard by those who sat round the table near to the curtained door.
"Of course," replied Loveland, his voice steady.
"I shouldn't have thought the British aristocracy would have such clumsy ways," Leo Cohen remarked audibly to Isidora. Then, calling jocularly across the room, "Say Alexander, got any mock turtle soup tonight?"
"No," growled Alexander.
"Thought you might be makin' a speciality of it this week," went on Cohen.
"Why?"