Carbuncle was a woman who
cared for such things, and Lord George also liked a glass of champagne in
the middle of the day. Lizzie professed to be perfectly indifferent on
such matters; but nevertheless she enjoyed her lunch, and allowed Lord
George to press upon her a second, and perhaps a portion of a third glass
of wine. Even Lucinda was roused up from her general state of apathy, and
permitted herself to forget Sir Griffin for a while.
During this journey to Carlisle Lizzie Eustace almost made up her mind
that Lord George was the very Corsair she had been expecting ever since
she had mastered Lord Byron's great poem. He had a way of doing things and
of saying things, of proclaiming himself to be master, and at the same
time of making himself thoroughly agreeable to his dependents, and
especially to the one dependent whom he most honoured at the time, which
exactly suited Lizzie's ideas of what a man should be. And then he
possessed that utter indifference to all conventions and laws which is the
great prerogative of Corsairs. He had no reverence for aught divine or
human, which is a great thing. The Queen and Parliament, the bench of
bishops, and even the police, were to him just so many fungi and
parasites, and noxious vapours, and false hypocrites.
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