"Why?"
"Because you are so learned, and he so ignorant. He has no culture
save that of the turf. But perhaps you have more sympathy with his
tastes than he supposes."
"I like him because I have not read the books from which he has
borrowed his opinions. Indeed, from their freshness, I should not be
surprised to learn that he had them at first hand from living men,
or even from his own observation of life."
"I may explain to you, Miss Goff," said Lucian, "that Lord
Worthiugton is a young gentleman--"
"Whose calendar is the racing calendar," interposed Lydia, "and who
interests himself in favorites and outsiders much as Lucian does in
prime-ministers and independent radicals. Would you like to go to
Ascot, Alice?"
Alice answered, as she felt Lucian wished her to answer, that she
had never been to a race, and that she had no desire to go to one.
"You will change your mind in time for next year's meeting. A race
interests every one, which is more than can be said for the opera or
the Academy."
"I have been at the Academy," said Alice, who had made a trip to
London once.
"Indeed!" said Lydia. "Were you in the National Gallery?"
"The National Gallery! I think not. I forget."
"I know many persons who never miss an Academy, and who do not know
where the National Gallery is. Did you enjoy the pictures, Alice?"
"Oh, very much indeed."
"You will find Ascot far more amusing."
"Let me warn you," said Lucian to Alice, "that my cousin's pet
caprice is to affect a distaste for art, to which she is
passionately devoted; and for literature, in which she is profoundly
read."
"Cousin Lucian," said Lydia, "should you ever be cut off from your
politics, and disappointed in your ambition, you will have an
opportunity of living upon art and literature. Then I shall respect
your opinion of their satisfactoriness as a staff of life. As yet
you have only tried them as a sauce."
"Discontented, as usual," said Lucian.
"Your one idea respecting me, as usual," replied Lydia, patiently,
as they entered the station.
The train, consisting of three carriages and a van, was waiting at
the platform. The engine was humming subduedly, and the driver and
fireman were leaning out; the latter, a young man, eagerly watching
two gentlemen who were standing before the first-class carriage, and
the driver sharing his curiosity in an elderly, preoccupied manner.
One of the persons thus observed was a slight, fair-haired man of
about twenty-five, in the afternoon costume of a metropolitan dandy.
Lydia knew the other the moment she came upon the platform as the
Hermes of the day before, modernized by a straw hat, a
canary-colored scarf, and a suit of a minute black-and-white
chess-board pattern, with a crimson silk handkerchief overflowing
the breast pocket of the coat. His hands were unencumbered by stick
or umbrella; he carried himself smartly, balancing himself so
accurately that he seemed to have no weight; and his expression was
self-satisfied and good-humored. But--! Lydia felt that there was a
"but" somewhere--that he must be something more than a handsome,
powerful, and light-hearted young man.