Cashel began to think he had better go. Lydia was surrounded by men who were speaking to her in German. He felt his own inability to talk learnedly even in English; and he had, besides, a conviction that she was angry with him for upsetting her cousin, who was gravely conversing with Miss Goff. Suddenly a horrible noise caused a general start and pause. Mr. Jack, the eminent composer, had opened the piano-forte, and was illustrating some points in a musical composition under discussion by making discordant sounds with his voice, accompanied by a few chords. Cashel laughed aloud in derision as he made his way towards the door through the crowd, which was now pressing round the pianoforte at which Madame Szczymplica had just come to the assistance of Jack. Near the door, and in a corner remote from the instrument, he came upon Lydia and a middle-aged gentleman, evidently neither a professor nor an artist.
“Ab’n’gas is a very clever man,” the gentleman was saying. “I am sorry I didn’t hear the lecture. But I leave all that to Mary. She receives the people who enjoy high art up-stairs; and I take the sensible men down to the garden or the smoking-room, according to the weather.”
“What do the sensible women do?” said Lydia.
“They come late,” said Mr. Hoskyn, and then laughed at his repartee until he became aware of the vicinity of Cashel, whose health he immediately inquired after, shaking his hand warmly and receiving a numbing grip in return. As soon as he saw that Lydia and Cashel were acquainted, he slipped away and left them to entertain one another.
“I wonder how he knows me,” said Cashel, heartened by her gracious reception of a nervous bow. “I never saw him before in my life.”
“He does not know you,” said Lydia, with some sternness. “He is your host, and therefore concludes that he ought to know you.”
“Oh! That was it, was it?” He paused, at a loss for conversation. She did not help him. At last he added, “I haven’t seen you this long time, Miss Carew.”
“It is not very long since I saw you, Mr. Cashel Byron. I saw you yesterday at some distance from London.”
“Oh, Lord!” exclaimed Cashel, “don’t say that. You’re joking, ain’t you?”
“No. Joking, in that sense, does not amuse me.”