Mrs. Hoskyn, additionally annoyed by apologies which she had not invited, and which put her in the ignominious position of a complainant, replied coldly, “Mr. Byron! Thank you; I had forgotten,” and was turning away when Lydia came up to introduce Alice, and to explain why she had entered unannounced. Lord Worthington then returned to the subject of Cashel, hoping to improve his credit by claiming Lydia’s acquaintance with him. “Did you hear our friend Byron’s speech, Miss Carew? Very characteristic, I thought.” “Very,” said Lydia. “I hope Mrs. Hoskyn’s guests are all familiar with his style. Otherwise they must find him a little startling.” “Yes,” said Mrs. Hoskyn, beginning to wonder whether Cashel could be some well-known eccentric genius. “He is very odd. I hope Mr. Webber is not offended.” “He is the less pleased as he was in the wrong,” said Lydia. “Intolerant refusal to listen to an opponent is a species of violence that has no business in such a representative nineteenth-century drawing-room as yours, Mrs. Hoskyn. There was a fitness in rebuking it by skilled physical violence. Consider the prodigious tact of it, too! One gentleman knocks another half-way across a crowded room, and yet no one is scandalized.” “You see, Mrs. Hoskyn, the general verdict is ‘Served him right,’” said Lord Worthington. “With a rider to the effect that both gentlemen displayed complete indifference to the comfort of their hostess,” said Lydia. “However, men so rarely sacrifice their manners to their minds that it would be a pity to blame them. You do not encourage conventionality, Mrs. Hoskyn?” “I encourage good manners, though certainly not conventional manners.” “And you think there is a difference?” “I FEEL that there is a difference,” said Mrs. Hoskyn, with dignity. “So do I,” said Lydia; “but one can hardly call others to account for one’s own subjective ideas.” Lydia went away to another part of the room without waiting for a reply. Meanwhile, Cashel stood friendless in the middle of the room, stared at by most of his neighbors, and spoken to by none. Women looked at him coldly lest it should be suspected that they were admiring him; and men regarded him stiffly according to the national custom. Since his recognition of Lydia, his self-confidence had given place to a misgiving that he had been making a fool of himself. He began to feel lonely and abashed; and but for his professional habit of maintaining a cheerful countenance under adverse circumstances, he would have hid himself in the darkest corner of the room. He was getting sullen, and seeking consolation in thoughts of how terribly he could handle all these distantly-mannered, black-coated gentlemen if he chose, when Lord Worthington came up to him. “I had no idea you were such an orator, Byron,” he said. “You can go into the Church when you cut the other trade. Eh?”