“Some I forget. I do forget. It’s a blank. The rest I won’t remember. Why the blazes are you always harping on that illness?” he exclaimed in a sudden heat.
“ ‘Sh! That is not the way to speak to me,” said Jasper, quietly.
Burke sank into cowed humility. “I beg your pardon, sir,” he said in a low voice. “I lost my head.”
“I am sorry to have touched on painful associations in your life,” said Jasper, with cold courtesy. “Be assured I shall not do so again.”
This outburst was the only spontaneous, genuine expression that he had as yet obtained from the man. He mentioned the incident to Cudby, who triumphantly glorified his own sagacity. Instead of Jasper being the salmon cunningly played by Burke, it was the salmon Burke who felt in his gills the hook that the unwitting Jasper commanded
