"A glorious time. Have you been up to-day?"
"Up among the doctors? No; I have had a lot of things to do."
"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 his friend's 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!" Dr. Lemon exclaimed, with jocular crudity.
"Is it true that you are going to marry a young marchioness?"
The face of the young man in the saddle became just a trifle rigid, and his firm eyes fixed themselves on Dr. Feeder.
"Who has told you that?"
"Mr. and Mrs. Freer, whom I met just now."
"Mr. and Mrs. Freer be hanged! And who told them?"
"Ever so many people; I don't know who."
"Gad, how things are tattled!" cried Jackson Lemon, with some asperity.
"I can see it 's true, by the way you say that."
