“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 title 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.”