_Undershell._ You know what maids _are_, Lady Maisie. They embroider. Unintentionally, I dare say, but still, they _do_ embroider.
_Lady Maisie_ (_puzzled_). She is very clever at mending lace, I know, though what _that_ has to do with it----
_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?
_Undershell_ (_to himself_). She admires me all the more for it. But I _knew_ she would take the right view! (_Aloud, with pathos._) I was only compelled by absolute starvation. I had had an unusually light lunch, and I was so hungry!