Lady Barbarina Part 3

"What I told you? It's all to their honour and glory," said Mr. Freer.

"Are they quite on the square? It's like those people in Thackeray."

"Oh if Thackeray could have done _this_!" And Mrs. Freer yearned over the lost hand.

"You mean all this scene?" asked the young man.

"No; the marriage of a British n.o.blewoman and an American doctor. It would have been a subject for a master of satire."

"You see you do want it, my dear," said her husband quietly.

"I want it as a story, but I don't want it for Doctor Lemon."

"Does he call himself 'Doctor' still?" Mr. Freer asked of young Feeder.

"I suppose he does-I call him so. Of course he doesn't practise. But once a doctor always a doctor."

"That's doctrine for Lady Barb!"

Sidney Feeder wondered. "Hasn't _she_ got a t.i.tle too? What would she expect him to be? President of the United States? He's a man of real ability-he might have stood at the head of his profession. When I think of that I want to swear. What did his father want to go and make all that money for?"

"It must certainly be odd to them to see a 'medical man' with six or eight millions," Mr. Freer conceded.

"They use much the same term as the Choctaws," said his wife.

"Why, some of their own physicians make immense fortunes," Sidney Feeder remarked.

"Couldn't he," she went on, "be made a baronet by the Queen?"

"Yes, then he'd be aristocratic," said the young man. "But I don't see why he should want to marry over here; it seems to me to be going out of his way. However, if he's happy I don't care. I like him very much; he has 'A1' ability. If it hadn't been for his father he'd have made a splendid doctor. But, as I say, he takes a great interest in medical science and I guess he means to promote it all he can-with his big fortune. He'll be sure to keep up his interest in research. He thinks we _do_ know something and is bound we shall know more. I hope she won't lower him, the young marchioness-is that her rank? And I hope they're really good people. He ought to be very useful. I should want to know a good deal about the foreign family I was going to marry into."

"He looked to me, riding there, as if he knew a good deal about the Clements," Dexter Freer said, getting to his feet as his wife suggested they ought to be going; "and he looked to me pleased with the knowledge.

There they come down the other side. Will you walk away with us or will you stay?"

"Stop him and ask him, and then come and tell us-in Jermyn Street." This was Mrs. Freer's parting injunction to Sidney Feeder.

"He ought to come himself-tell him that," her husband added.

"Well, 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."

"d.a.m.n 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 fas.h.i.+onable 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.