“I am afraid I should cut a poor figure in an encounter with my rival,” he said, smiling.
“Call him out and shoot him,” said Alice, vivaciously. “Very likely he does not know how to use a pistol.”
He smiled again; but had Alice known how seriously he entertained her suggestion for some moments before dismissing it as impracticable, she would not have offered it. Putting a bullet into Cashel struck him rather as a luxury which he could not afford than as a crime. Meanwhile, Alice, being now quite satisfied that this Mr. Webber, on whom she had wasted so much undeserved awe, might be treated as inconsiderately as she used to treat her beaux at Wiltstoken, proceeded to amuse herself by torturing him a little.
“It is odd,” she said, reflectively, “that a common man like that should be able to make himself so very attractive to Lydia. It was not because he was such a fine man; for she does not care in the least about that. I don’t think she would give a second look at the handsomest man in London, she is so purely intellectual. And yet she used to delight in talking to him.”
“Oh, that is a mistake. Lydia has a certain manner which leads people to believe that she is deeply interested in the person she happens to be speaking to; But it is only manner—it means nothing.”
“I know that manner of hers perfectly well. But this was something quite different.”
Lucian shook his head reproachfully. “I cannot jest on so serious a matter,” he said, resolving to make the attempt to re-establish his dignity with Alice. “I think, Miss Groff, that you perhaps hardly know how absurd your supposition is. There are not many men of distinction in Europe with whom my cousin is not personally acquainted. A very young girl, who had seen little of the world, might possibly be deceived by the exterior of such a man as Byron. A woman accustomed to associate with writers, thinkers, artists, statesmen, and diplomatists could make no such mistake. No doubt the man’s vulgarity and uncouth address amused her for a moment; but—”
“But why did she ask him to come to her Friday afternoons?”
“A mere civility which she extended to him because he assisted her in some difficulty she got into in the streets.”
“She might as well have asked a policeman to come to see her. I don’t believe that was it.”