I guess I’ll stay,” said the young man as his companions merged themselves in the crowd that now was tending toward the gates. He went and stood by the barrier and saw Doctor Lemon and his friends pull up at the entrance to the Row, where they apparently prepared to separate. The separation took some time and Jackson’s colleague became interested. Lord Canterville and his younger daughter lingered to talk with two gentlemen, also mounted, who looked a good deal at the legs of Lady Agatha’s horse. Doctor Lemon and Lady Barb were face to face, very near each other, and she, leaning forward a little, stroked the overlapping neck of his glossy bay. At a distance he appeared to be talking and she to be listening without response. “Oh yes, he’s making love to her,” thought Sidney Feeder. Suddenly her father and sister turned away to leave the Park, and she joined them and disappeared while Jackson came up on the left again as for a final gallop. He hadn’t gone far before he perceived his comrade, who awaited him at the rail; and he repeated the gesture Lady Barb had described as a kiss of the hand, though it had not to his friend’s eyes that full grace. When he came within hail he pulled up.
“If I had known you were coming here I’d have given you a mount,” he immediately and bountifully cried. There was not in his person that irradiation of wealth and distinction which made Lord Canterville glow like a picture; but as he sat there with his neat little legs stuck out he looked very bright and sharp and happy, wearing in his degree the aspect of one of Fortune’s favourites. He had a thin keen delicate face, a nose very carefully finished, a quick eye, a trifle hard in expression, and a fine dark moustache, a good deal cultivated. He was not striking, but he had his intensity, and it was easy to see that he had his purposes.
“How many horses have you got—about forty?” his compatriot inquired in response to his greeting.
“About five hundred,” said Jackson Lemon.
“Did you mount your friends—the three you were riding with?”
“Mount them? They’ve got the best horses in England.”
“Did they sell you this one?” Sidney Feeder continued in the same humorous strain.
“What do you think of him?” said his friend without heed of this question.
“Well, he’s an awful old screw. I wonder he can carry you.”
“Where did you get your hat?” Jackson asked both as a retort and as a relevant criticism.
“I got it in New York. What’s the matter with it?”
“It’s very beautiful. I wish I had brought over one like it.”
“The head’s the thing—not the hat. I don’t mean yours—I mean mine,” Sidney Feeder laughed. “There’s something very deep in your question. I must think it over.”
“Don’t—don’t,” said Jackson Lemon; “you’ll never get to the bottom of it. Are you having a good time?”
“A glorious time. Have you been up to-day?”
“Up among the doctors? No—I’ve had a lot of things to do,” Jackson was obliged to plead.
“Well”—and his friend richly recovered it—“we had a very interesting discussion. I made a few remarks.”
“You ought to have told me. What were they about?”
“About the intermarriage of races from the point of view—” And Sidney Feeder paused a moment, occupied with the attempt to scratch the nose of the beautiful horse.
“From the point of view of the progeny, I suppose?”
“Not at all. From the point of view of the old friends.”
“Damn the old friends!” Doctor Lemon exclaimed with jocular crudity.
“Is it true that you’re going to marry a young marchioness?”
The face of the speaker in the saddle became just a trifle rigid, and his firm eyes penetrated the other. “Who has played that on you?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Freer, whom I met just now.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Freer be hanged too. And who told them?”
“Ever so many fashionable people. I don’t know who.”
“Gad, how things are tattled!” cried Jackson Lemon with asperity.
“I can see it’s true by the way you say that,” his friend ingenuously stated.
“Do Freer and his wife believe it?” Jackson went on impatiently.
“They want you to go and see them. You can judge for yourself.”
“I’ll go and see them and tell them to mind their business.”
“In Jermyn Street; but I forget the number. I’m sorry the marchioness isn’t one of ours,” Doctor Feeder continued.
“If I should marry her she would be quick enough. But I don’t see what difference it can make to you,” said Jackson.
“Why, she’ll look down on the profession, and I don’t like that from your wife.”
“That will touch me more than you.”
“Then it is true?” Doctor Feeder cried with a finer appeal.
“She won’t look down. I’ll answer for that.”
“You won’t care. You’re out of it all now.”
“No, I’m not. I mean to do no end of work.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it,” said Sidney Feeder, who was by no means perfectly incredulous, but who thought it salutary to take that tone. “I’m not sure you’ve any right to work—you oughtn’t to have everything; you ought to leave the field to us, not take the bread out of our mouths and get the kudos. You must pay the penalty of being bloated. You’d have been celebrated if you had continued to practise—more celebrated than any one. But you won’t be now—you can’t be any way you fix it. Some one else is going to be in your place.”
Jackson Lemon listened to this, but without meeting the eyes of the prophet; not, however, as if he were avoiding them, but as if the long stretch of the Ride, now less and less obstructed, irresistibly drew him off again and made his companion’s talk retarding. Nevertheless he answered deliberately and kindly enough. “I hope it will be you, old boy.” And he bowed to a lady who rode past.
“Very likely it will. I hope I make you feel mean. That’s what I’m trying to do.”
“Oh awfully!” Jackson cried. “All the more that I’m not in the least engaged.”
“Well, that’s good. Won’t you come up to-morrow?” Doctor Feeder went on.
“I’ll try, my dear fellow. I can’t be sure. By-bye!”
“Oh you’re lost anyway!” sighed Sidney Feeder as the other started away.
II
It was Lady Marmaduke, wife of Sir Henry of that clan, who had introduced the amusing young American to Lady Beauchemin; after which Lady Beauchemin had made him acquainted with her mother and sisters. Lady Marmaduke too was of outland strain, remaining for her conjugal baronet the most ponderable consequence of a tour in the United States. At present, by the end of ten years, she knew her London as she had never known her New York, so that it had been easy for her to be, as she called herself, Jackson’s social godmother. She had views with regard to his career, and these views fitted into a scheme of high policy which, if our space permitted, I should be glad to lay before the reader in its magnitude. She wished to add an arch or two to the bridge on which she had effected her transit from America; and it was her belief that Doctor Lemon might furnish the materials. This bridge, as yet a somewhat sketchy and rickety structure, she saw—in the future—boldly stretch from one solid pier to another. It could but serve both ways, for reciprocity was the keynote