"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.