She was about retiring, under the impression that he was not there, when the waiter to whom she had spoken before said to her: "Are you looking for Mr.Whitford ?" There was something in his voice that made her heart stand still.
"Yes," she replied.
"You will find him at the lower end of the room, just in the corner," said the man.
Mrs.Whitford made her way to the lower end of the room.

Ellis was sitting in a chair, stupid and maudlin, and two or three thoughtless girls were around his chair laughing at his drunken efforts to be witty.

The shocked mother did not speak to him, but shrunk away and went gliding from the room.

At the door she said to the waiter who had followed her out, drawn by a look she gave him: "I will be ready to go in five minutes, and I want Mr.Whitford to go with me.

Get him down to the door as quietly as you can." The waiter went back into the supper-room, and with a tact that came from experience in cases similar to this managed to get the young man away without arousing his opposition.
Five minutes afterward, as Mrs.Whitford sat in her carriage at the door of Mr.Birtwell's palace home, her son was pushed in, half resisting, by two waiters, so drunk that his wretched mother had to support him with her arm all the way home.