'Jack, dear Jack,' said Maude beseechingly, and in tears now, 'I implore you not to speak to Roland of this unseemly episode.'
'The fellow seems to have taken too much wine.'
'Yes, Jack, and forgot himself.'
'But he should have remembered you, and who you are.'
'But you don't know—you can't know, how Roland is situated,' said Maude, in a breathless and broken voice.
'I suspect much; but there—don't weep, Maude; the fellow's whole existence is not worth one of your tears.'
Maude was full of fear and distress for what might ensue if Roland knew all. Alas! she could very little foresee what did ensue.
But notwithstanding his promise to Maude, Elliot was too puzzled by the apparent mystery, and her too evident sense of grief and mortification, not to make some small reference to the affair when he and Roland met for a farewell cigar in the smoke-room, after the last of the guests had driven away. He kept, however, Maude's name out of the matter.
'I am loth, Roland, to have an unseemly row with one of your dependents; but, d—n me, if I don't feel inclined to lash that fellow—Sharpe, I think, his name is!'
'He is certainly an underbred fellow,' said Roland uneasily.