statue!”
“You do not seem flattered by that.”
“It is not flattering to be taken for a lump of stone,” he replied, ruefully.
Lydia looked at him thoughtfully. Here was a man whom she had mistaken for the finest image of manly strength and beauty in the world; and he was so devoid of artistic culture that he held a statue to be a distasteful lump of stone.
“I believe I was trespassing then,” she said; “but I did so unintentionally. I had gone astray; for I am comparatively a stranger here, and cannot find my way about the park yet.”
“It didn’t matter a bit,” said Cashel, impetuously. “Come as often as you want. Mellish fancies that if any one gets a glimpse of me he won’t get any odds. You see he would like people to think—” Cashel checked himself, and added, in some confusion, “Mellish is mad; that’s about where it is.”
Alice glanced significantly at Lydia. She had already suggested that madness was the real reason of the seclusion of the tenants at the Warren. Cashel saw the glance, and intercepted it by turning to her and saying, with an attempt at conversational ease,
“How do you young ladies amuse yourselves in the country? Do you play billiards ever?”
“No,” said Alice, indignantly. The question, she thought, implied that she was capable of spending her evenings on the first floor of a public-house. To her surprise, Lydia remarked,
“I play — a little. I do not care sufficiently for the game to make myself proficient. You were equipped for lawn-tennis, I think, when I saw you yesterday. Miss Goff is a celebrated lawn-tennis player. She vanquished the Australian champion last year.”
It seemed that Byron, after all, was something of a courtier; for he displayed great astonishment at this feat. “The Australian champion!” he repeated. “And who may HE — Oh! you mean the lawn-tennis champion. To be sure. Well, Miss Goff, I congratulate you. It is not every amateur that can brag of having shown a professional to a back seat.”
Alice, outraged by the imputation of bragging, and certain that slang was vulgar, whatever billiards might be, bore herself still more loftily, and resolved to snub him explicitly if he addressed her again. But he did not; for they presently came to a narrow iron gate in the wall of the park, at which Lydia stopped.
“Let me open it for you,” said Cashel. She gave him the key, and he seized one of the bars of the gate with his left hand, and stooped as though he wanted to look into the keyhole. Yet he opened it smartly enough.
Alice was about to pass in with a cool bow when she saw Miss Carew offer Cashel her hand. Whatever Lydia did was done so well that it seemed the right thing to do. He took it timidly and gave it a little shake, not daring to meet her eyes. Alice put out her hand stiffly. Cashel immediately stepped forward with his right foot and enveloped her fingers with the hardest clump of knuckles she had ever felt. Glancing down at this remarkable fist, she saw that it was discolored almost to blackness. Then she went in through the gate, followed by Lydia, who turned to close it behind her. As she pushed, Cashel, standing outside, grasped a bar and pulled. She at once relinquished to him the labor of shutting the gate, and smiled her thanks as she turned away; but in that moment he plucked up courage to look at her. The sensation of being so looked at was quite novel to her and very curious. She was even a little out of countenance, but not so much so as Cashel, who nevertheless could not take his eyes away.
“Do you think,” said Alice, as they crossed the orchard, “that that man is a gentleman?”
“How can I possibly tell? We hardly know him.”
“But what do you think? There is always a certain something about a gentleman that one recognizes by instinct.”
“Is there? I have never observed it.”
“Have you not?” said Alice, surprised, and beginning uneasily to fear that her superior perception of gentility was in some way the effect of her social inferiority to Miss Carew. “I thought one could always tell.”
“Perhaps so,” said Lydia. “For my own part I have found the same varieties of address in every class. Some people enjoy a native distinction and grace of manner—”
“That is what I mean,” said Alice.
“ — but they are seldom ladies and gentlemen; often actors, gypsies, and Celtic or foreign peasants. Undoubtedly one can make a fair guess, but not in the case of this Mr. Cashel Byron. Are you curious about him?”
“I!” exclaimed Alice, superbly. “Not in the least.”
“I am. He interests me. I seldom see anything novel in humanity; and he is a very singular man.”
“I meant,” said Alice, crestfallen, “that I take no special interest in him.”
Lydia, not being curious as to the exact degree of Alice’s interest, merely nodded, and continued, “He may, as you suppose, be a man of humble origin who has seen something of society; or he may be a gentleman unaccustomed to society. Probably the latter. I feel no conviction either way.”
“But he speaks very roughly; and his slang is disgusting. His hands are hard and quite black. Did you not notice them?”
“I noticed it all; and I think that if he were a man of low condition he would be careful not to use slang. Self-made persons are usually precise in their language; they rarely violate the written laws of society. Besides, his pronunciation of some words is so distinct that an idea crossed me once that he might be an actor. But then it is not uniformly distinct. I am sure that he has some object or occupation in life: he has not the air of an idler. Yet I have thought of all the ordinary professions, and he does not fit one of them. This is perhaps what makes him interesting. He is unaccountable.”
“He must have some position. He was very familiar with Lord Worthington.”
“Lord Worthington is a sportsman, and is familiar with all sorts of people.”
“Yes; but surely he would not let a jockey, or anybody of that class, put his arm round his neck, as we saw Mr. Byron do.”
“That is true,” said Lydia, thoughtfully. “Still,” she added, clearing her brow and laughing, “I am loath to believe that he is an invalid student.”
“I will tell you what he is,” said Alice suddenly. “He is companion and keeper to the man with whom he lives. Do you recollect his saying ‘Mellish is mad’?”
“That is possible,” said Lydia. “At all events we have got a topic; and that is an important home comfort in the country.”
Just then they reached the castle. Lydia lingered for a moment on the terrace. The Gothic chimneys of the Warren Lodge stood up against the long, crimson cloud into which the sun was sinking. She smiled as if some quaint idea had occurred to her; raised her eyes for a moment to the black-marble Egyptian gazing with unwavering eyes into the sky; and followed Alice indoors.
Later on, when it was quite dark, Cashel sat in a spacious kitchen at the lodge, thinking. His companion, who had laid his coat aside, was at the fire, smoking, and watching a saucepan that simmered there. He broke the silence by remarking, after a glance at the clock, “Time to go to roost.”
“Time
