Chapter 11

Alice was more at her ease during the remnant of the London season.
Though she had been proud of her connection with Lydia, she had
always felt eclipsed in her presence; and now that Lydia was gone,
the pride remained and the sense of inferiority was forgotten. Her
freedom emboldened and improved her. She even began to consider her
own judgment a safer guide in the affairs of every day than the
example of her patroness. Had she not been right in declaring Cashel
Byron an ignorant and common man when Lydia, in spite of her
warning, had actually invited him to visit them? And now all the
newspapers were confirming the opinion she had been trying to
impress on Lydia for months past. On the evening of the
assault-at-arms, the newsmen had shouted through the streets,
"Disgraceful scene between two pugilists at Islington in the
presence of the African king." Next day the principal journals
commented on the recent attempt to revive the brutal pastime of
prize-fighting; accused the authorities of conniving at it, and
called on them to put it down at once with a strong hand. "Unless,"
said a clerical organ, "this plague-spot be rooted out from our
midst, it will no longer be possible for our missionaries to pretend
that England is the fount of the Gospel of Peace." Alice collected
these papers, and forwarded them to Wiltstoken.

On this subject one person at least shared her bias. Whenever she
met Lucian Webber, they talked about Cashel, invariably coming to
the conclusion that though the oddity of his behavior had gratified
Lydia's unfortunate taste for eccentricity, she had never regarded
him with serious interest, and would not now, under any
circumstances, renew her intercourse with him. Lucian found little
solace in these conversations, and generally suffered from a vague
sense of meanness after them. Yet next time they met he would drift
into discussing Cashel over again; and he always rewarded Alice for
the admirable propriety of her views by dancing at least three times
with her when dancing was the business of the evening. The dancing
was still less congenial than the conversation. Lucian, who had at
all times too much of the solemnity of manner for which Frenchmen
reproach Englishmen, danced stiffly and unskilfully. Alice, whose
muscular power and energy were superior to anything of the kind that
Mr. Mellish could artificially produce, longed for swift motion and
violent exercise, and, even with an expert partner, could hardly
tame herself to the quietude of dancing as practised in London. When
waltzing with Lucian she felt as though she were carrying a stick
round the room in the awkward fashion in which Punch carries his
baton. In spite of her impression that he was a