Cashel Byron's Profession

"Where did you meet with it?"

"Mr. Byron used it just now."

"Do you really like that man?" said Alice, returning to the subject

more humbly than she had quitted it.

"So far, I do not dislike him. He puzzles me. If the roughness of

his manner is an affectation I have never seen one so successful

before."

"Perhaps he does not know any better. His coarseness did not strike

me as being affected at all."

"I should agree with you but for one or two remarks that fell from

him. They showed an insight into the real nature of scientific

knowledge, and an instinctive sense of the truths underlying words,

which I have never met with except in men of considerable culture

and experience. I suspect that his manner is deliberately assumed in

protest against the selfish vanity which is the common source of

social polish. It is partly natural, no doubt. He seems too

impatient to choose his words heedfully. Do you ever go to the

theatre?"

"No," said Alice, taken aback by this apparent irrelevance. "My

father disapproved of it. But I was there once. I saw the 'Lady of

Lyons.'"

"There is a famous actress, Adelaide Gisborne--"

"It was she whom I saw as the Lady of Lyons. She did it

beautifully."

"Did Mr. Byron remind you of her?"

Alice stared incredulously at Lydia. "I do not think there can be

two people in the world less like one another," she said.

"Nor do I," said Lydia, meditatively. "But I think their

dissimilarity owes its emphasis to some lurking likeness. Otherwise

how could he have reminded me of her?" Lydia, as she spoke, sat down

with a troubled expression, as if trying to unravel her thoughts.

"And yet," she added, presently, "my theatrical associations are so

complex that--" A long silence ensued, during which Alice, conscious

of some unusual stir in her patroness, watched her furtively and

wondered what would happen next.

"Alice."

"Yes."

"My mind is exercising itself in spite of me on small and

impertinent matters--a sure symptom of failing mental health. My

presence here is only one of several attempts that I have made to

live idly since my father's death. They have all failed. Work has

become necessary to me. I will go to London tomorrow."

Alice looked up in dismay; for this seemed equivalent to a

dismissal. But her face expressed nothing but polite indifference.