The Golden House | Page 9

Charles Dudley Warner
other
persons and things. The stream in its own channel flowed along not
without vexations, friction and foaming and dashings from bank to
bank; but it became quite another and a more difficult movement when
it was joined to another stream, with its own currents and eddies and
impetuosities and sluggishness, constantly liable to be deflected if not
put altogether on another course. Edith was not putting it in this form as
she turned over her notes of invitation and appointments and
engagements, but simply wondering where the time for her life was to
come in, and for Jack's life, which occupied a much larger space than it
seemed to occupy in the days before it was joined to hers. Very curious
this discovery of what another's life really is. Of course the society life
must go on, that had always gone on, for what purpose no one could
tell, only it was the accepted way of disposing of time; and now there
were the dozen ways in which she was solicited to show her interest in
those supposed to be less fortunate in life than herself-the alleviation of
the miseries of her own city. And with society, and charity, and
sympathy with the working classes, and her own reading, and a little
drawing and painting, for which she had some talent, what became of
that comradeship with Jack, that union of interests and affections,

which was to make her life altogether so high and sweet?
This reverie, which did not last many minutes, and was interrupted by
the abrupt moving away of Edith to the writing-desk in her own room,
was caused by a moment's vivid realization of what Jack's interests in
life were. Could she possibly make them her own? And if she did, what
would become of her own ideals?

III
It was indeed a busy day for Jack. Great injustice would be done him if
it were supposed that he did not take himself and his occupations
seriously. His mind was not disturbed by trifles. He knew that he had
on the right sort of four-in-hand necktie, with the appropriate pin of
pear-shaped pearl, and that he carried the cane of the season. These
things come by a sort of social instinct, are in the air, as it were, and do
not much tax the mind. He had to hasten a little to keep his half-
past-eleven o'clock appointment at Stalker's stables, and when he
arrived several men of his set were already waiting, who were also busy
men, and had made a little effort to come round early and assist Jack in
making up his mind about the horse.
When Mr. Stalker brought out Storm, and led him around to show his
action, the connoisseurs took on a critical attitude, an attitude of
judgment, exhibited not less in the poise of the head and the serious
face than in the holding of the cane and the planting of legs wide apart.
And the attitude had a refined nonchalance which professional
horsemen scarcely ever attain. Storm could not have received more
critical and serious attention if he had been a cooked terrapin. He could
afford to stand this scrutiny, and he seemed to move about with the
consciousness that he knew more about being a horse than his judges.
Storm was, in fact, a splendid animal, instinct with life from his thin
flaring nostril to his small hoof; black as a raven, his highly groomed
skin took the polish of ebony, and showed the play of his powerful
muscles, and, one might say, almost the nervous currents that thrilled
his fine texture. His large, bold eyes, though not wicked, flamed now
and then with an energy and excitement that gave ample notice that he
would obey no master who had not stronger will and nerve than his
own. It was a tribute to Jack's manliness that, when he mounted him for
a turn in the ring, Storm seemed to recognize the fine quality of both

seat and hand, and appeared willing to take him on probation.
"He's got good points," said Mr. Herbert Albert Flick, "but I'd like a
straighter back."
"I'll be hanged, though, Jack," was Mr. Mowbray Russell's comment,
"if I'd ride him in the Park before he's docked. Say what you like about
action, a horse has got to have style."
"Moves easy, falls off a little too much to suit me in the quarter,"
suggested Mr. Pennington Docstater, sucking the head of his cane.
"How about his staying quality, Stalker?"
"That's just where he is, Mr. Docstater; take him on the road, he's a
stayer for all day. Goes like a bird. He'll take you along at the rate of
nine miles in forty-five minutes as long as you want to sit there."
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