GEORGE SHAW - The Complete Works

“Precisely. But she might have had something particular to say since we last met.”

“She hasn’t had,” said Alice, provoked by an almost arch smile from him.

“She will be glad to hear that I have at last succeeded in recovering possession of the Warren Lodge from its undesirable tenants.”

“I thought they went long ago,” said Alice, indifferently.

“The men have not been there for a month or more. The difficulty was to get them to remove their property. However, we are rid of them now. The only relic of their occupation is a Bible with half the pages torn out, and the rest scrawled with records of bets, recipes for sudorific and other medicines, and a mass of unintelligible memoranda. One inscription, in faded ink, runs, ‘To Robert Mellish, from his affectionate mother, with her sincere hope that he may ever walk in the ways of this book.’ I am afraid that hope was not fulfilled.”

“How wicked of him to tear a Bible!” said Alice, seriously. Then she laughed, and added, “I know I shouldn’t; but I can’t help it.”

“The incident strikes me rather as being pathetic,” said Lucian, who liked to show that he was not deficient in sensibility. “One can picture the innocent faith of the poor woman in her boy’s future, and so forth.”

“Inscriptions in books are like inscriptions on tombstones,” said Alice, disparagingly. “They don’t mean much.”

“I am glad that these men have no further excuse for going to Wiltstoken. It was certainly most unfortunate that Lydia should have made the acquaintance of one of them.”

“So you have said at least fifty times,” replied Alice, deliberately. “I believe you are jealous of that poor boxer.”

Lucian became quite red. Alice trembled at her own audacity, but kept a bold front.

“Really — it’s too absurd,” he said, betraying his confusion by assuming a carelessness quite foreign to his normal manner. “In what way could I possibly be jealous, Miss Goff?”

“That is best known to yourself.”

Lucian now saw plainly that there was a change in Alice, and that he had lost ground with her. The smarting of his wounded vanity suddenly obliterated his impression that she was, in the main, a well-conducted and meritorious young woman. But in its place came another impression that she was a spoiled beauty. And, as he was by no means fondest of the women whose behavior accorded best with his notions of propriety, he found, without at once acknowledging to himself, that the change was not in all respects a change for the worse. Nevertheless, he could not forgive her last remark, though he took care not to let her see how it stung him.

“I am afraid I should cut a poor figure in an encounter with my rival,” he said, smiling.

“Call him out and shoot him,” said Alice, vivaciously. “Very likely he does not know how to use a pistol.”

He smiled again; but had Alice known how seriously he entertained her suggestion for some moments before dismissing it as impracticable, she would not have offered it. Putting a bullet into Cashel struck him rather as a luxury which he could not afford than as a crime. Meanwhile, Alice, being now quite satisfied that this Mr. Webber, on whom she had wasted so much undeserved awe, might be treated as inconsiderately as she used to treat her beaux at Wiltstoken, proceeded to amuse herself by torturing him a little.

“It is odd,” she said, reflectively, “that a common man like that should be able to make himself so very attractive to Lydia. It was not because he was such a fine man; for she does not care in the least about that. I don’t think she would give a second look at the handsomest man in London, she is so purely intellectual. And yet she used to delight in talking to him.”

“Oh, that is a mistake. Lydia has a certain manner which leads people to believe that she is deeply interested in the person she happens to be speaking to; But it is only manner — it means nothing.”

“I know that manner of hers perfectly well. But this was something quite different.”

Lucian shook his head reproachfully. “I cannot jest on so serious a matter,” he said, resolving to make the attempt to re-establish his dignity with Alice. “I think, Miss Groff, that you perhaps hardly know how absurd your supposition is. There are not many men of distinction in Europe with whom my cousin is not personally acquainted. A very young girl, who had seen little of the world, might possibly be deceived by the exterior of such a man as Byron. A woman accustomed to associate with writers, thinkers, artists, statesmen, and diplomatists could make no such mistake. No doubt the man’s vulgarity and uncouth address amused her for a moment; but—”

“But why did she ask him to come to her Friday afternoons?”

“A mere civility which she extended to him because he assisted her in some difficulty she got into in the streets.”

“She might as well have asked a policeman to come to see her. I don’t believe that was it.”

Lucian at that moment hated Alice. “I am sorry you think such a thing possible,” he said. “Shall we resume our waltz?”

Alice was not yet able to bear an implication that she did not understand society sufficiently to appreciate the distance between Lydia and Cashel.

“Of course I know it is impossible,” she said, in her old manner. “I did not mean it.”

Lucian found some difficulty in gathering from this what she did mean; and they presently took refuge in waltzing. Subsequently, Alice, fearing that her new lights had led her too far, drew back a little; led the conversation to political matters, and expressed her amazement at the extent and variety of the work he performed in Downing Street. He accepted her compliments with perfect seriousness; and she felt satisfied that she had, on the whole, raised herself in his esteem by her proceedings during the evening. But she was mistaken. She knew nothing of politics or official work, and he knew the worthlessness of her pretended admiration of his share in them, although he felt that it was right that she should revere his powers from the depths of her ignorance. What stuck like a burr in his mind was that she thought him small enough to be jealous of the poor boxer, and found his dancing awkward.

After that dance Alice thought much about Lucian, and also about the way in which society regulated marriages. Before Miss Carew sent for her she had often sighed because all the nice men she knew of moved in circles into which an obscure governess had no chance of admission. She had received welcome attentions from them occasionally at subscription balls; but for sustained intimacy and proposals of marriage she had been dependent on the native youth of Wiltstoken, whom she looked upon as louts or prigs, and among whom Wallace Parker had shone preeminent as a university man, scholar, and gentleman. And now that she was a privileged beauty in society which would hardly tolerate Wallace Parker, she found that the nice men were younger sons, poor and extravagant, far superior to Lucian Webber as partners for a waltz, but not to be thought of as partners in domestic economy. Alice had experienced the troubles of poverty, and had never met with excellence in men except in poems, which she had long ago been taught to separate from the possibilities of actual life. She had, therefore, no conception of any degree of merit in a husband being sufficient to compensate for slender means of subsistence. She was not base-minded; nothing could have induced her to marry a man, however rich, whom she thought wicked. She wanted money; but she wanted more than money; and here it was that she found supply failing to answer the demand. For not only were all the handsome, gallant, wellbred men getting deeply into debt by living beyond smaller incomes than that with which Wallace Parker had tempted her, but many of those who had inherited both riches and rank were as inferior to him, both in appearance and address, as they were in scholarship. No man, possessing both wealth and amiability, had yet shown the least disposition to fall in love with her.