Undershell. Listen to me, Lady Maisie. I came to this house at your bidding. Yes, but for your written appeal, I should have treated the invitation I received from your aunt with silent contempt. Had I obeyed my first impulse and ignored it, I should have been spared humiliations and indignities which ought rather to excite your pity than—than any other sensation. Think—try to realise what my feelings must have been when I found myself expected by the butler here to sit down to supper with him and the upper servants in the housekeeper's room!
Lady Maisie (shocked). Oh, Mr. Blair! Indeed, I had no—— You weren't really! How could they? What did you say?
Undershell (haughtily). I believe I let him know my opinion of the snobbery of his employers in treating a guest of theirs so cavalierly.
Lady Maisie (distressed). But surely—surely you couldn't suppose that my uncle and aunt were capable of——
Undershell. What else could I suppose, under the circumstances? It is true I have since learnt that I was mistaken in this particular instance; but I am not ignorant of the ingrained contempt you aristocrats have for all who live by exercising their intellect—the bitter scorn of birth for brains!
Lady Maisie. I am afraid the—the contempt is all on the other side; but if that is how you feel about it, I don't wonder that you were indignant.
Undershell. Indignant! I was furious. In fact, nothing would have induced me to sit down to supper at all, if it hadn't been for——
Lady Maisie (in a small voice). Then—you did sit down? With the servants! Oh, Mr. Blair!
Undershell. I thought you were already aware of it. Yes, Lady Maisie, I endured even that. But (with magnanimity) you must not distress yourself about it now. If I can forget it, surely you can do so!
Lady Maisie. Can I? That you should have consented, for any consideration whatever; how could you—how could you?