Lydia, with Mrs. Byron's charm fresh upon her, wondered what manner
of woman this Mrs. Skene could be who had supplanted her in the
affections of her son, and yet was no more than a prize-fighter's
old missis. Evidently she was not one to turn a young man from a
career in the ring. Again the theme of Cashel's occupation and the
chances of his quitting it ran away with Lydia's attention. She sat
with her eyes fixed on the arena, without seeing the soldiers,
swordsmen, or athletes who were busy there; her mind wandered
further and further from the place; and the chattering of the people
resolved itself into a distant hum and was forgotten.
Suddenly she saw a dreadful-looking man coming towards her across
the arena. His face had the surface and color of blue granite; his
protruding jaws and retreating forehead were like those of an
orang-outang. She started from her reverie with a shiver, and,
recovering her hearing as well as her vision of external things,
became conscious of an attempt to applaud this apparition by a few
persons below. The man grinned ferociously, placed one hand on a
stake of the ring, and vaulted over the ropes. Lydia now remarked
that, excepting his hideous head and enormous hands and feet, he was
a well-made man, with loins and shoulders that shone in the light,
and gave him an air of great strength and activity.
"Ain't he a picture?" she heard Mellish exclaim, ecstatically.
"There's condition for you!"
"Ah!" said Skene, disparagingly. "But ain't HE the gentleman! Just
look at him. It's like the Prince of Wales walking down Pall Mall."
Lydia, hearing this, looked again, and saw Cashel Byron, exactly as
she had seen him for the first time in the elm vista at Wiltstoken,
approaching the ring with the indifferent air of a man going through
some tedious public ceremony.
"A god coming down to compete with a gladiator," whispered Lord
Worthington, eagerly. "Isn't it, Miss Carew? Apollo and the satyr!
You must admit that our mutual friend is a splendid-looking fellow.
If he could go into society like that, by Jove, the women--"
"Hush," said Lydia, as if his words were intolerable.
Cashel did not vault over the ropes. He stepped through them
languidly, and, rejecting the proffered assistance of a couple of
officious friends, drew on a boxing-glove fastidiously, like an
exquisite preparing for a fashionable promenade. Having thus muffled
his left hand so as to make it useless for the same service to his
right, he dipped his fingers into the other glove, gripped it
between his teeth, and dragged it on with the action of a tiger
tearing its prey. Lydia shuddered again.