He stopped; his brave bearing vanished; he became limp and shamefaced. Lucian, without a word, withdrew with Lydia to the adjoining apartment, and left him staring after her with wistful eyes and slackened jaw.
In the meantime Mrs. Hoskyn, an earnest-looking young woman, with striking dark features and gold spectacles, was looking for Lord Worthington, who betrayed a consciousness of guilt by attempting to avoid her. But she cut off his retreat, and confronted him with a steadfast gaze that compelled him to stand and answer for himself.
“Who is that gentleman whom you introduced to me? I do not recollect his name.”
“I am really awfully sorry, Mrs. Hoskyn. It was too bad of Byron. But Webber was excessively nasty.”
Mrs. Hoskyn, additionally annoyed by apologies which she had not invited, and which put her in the ignominious position of a complainant, replied coldly, “Mr. Byron! Thank you; I had forgotten,” and was turning away when Lydia came up to introduce Alice, and to explain why she had entered unannounced. Lord Worthington then returned to the subject of Cashel, hoping to improve his credit by claiming Lydia’s acquaintance with him.
“Did you hear our friend Byron’s speech, Miss Carew? Very characteristic, I thought.”
“Very,” said Lydia. “I hope Mrs. Hoskyn’s guests are all familiar with his style. Otherwise they must find him a little startling.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Hoskyn, beginning to wonder whether Cashel could be some well-known eccentric genius. “He is very odd. I hope Mr. Webber is not offended.”
“He is the less pleased as he was in the wrong,” said Lydia. “Intolerant refusal to listen to an opponent is a species of violence that has no business in such a representative nineteenth-century drawing-room as yours, Mrs. Hoskyn. There was a fitness in rebuking it by skilled physical violence. Consider the prodigious tact of it, too! One gentleman knocks another half-way across a crowded room, and yet no one is scandalized.”
“You see, Mrs. Hoskyn, the general verdict is ‘Served him right,’” said Lord Worthington.