“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.”