“But pugilism is boxing; it is not a profession. I suppose all men are more or less pugilists. I want a sense of the word in which it denotes a calling or occupation of some kind. I fancy it means a demonstrator of anatomy. However, it does not matter.” “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. “We shall have time to run through all the follies of the season before June, when I hope to return here and set to work at a book I have planned. I must collect the material for it in London. If I leave town before the season is over, and you are unwilling to come away with me, I can easily find some one who will take care of you as long as you please to stay. I wish it were June already!”