“I’m glad to hear it; but it isn’t so much that,” she made answer, sinking back a little on her sofa. If it wasn’t that she didn’t say what it was, though she had looked for a moment as if she were going to. She only raised her eyes to her husband’s face, she asked for inspiration. I know not whether she found it, but in a moment she said to Jackson Lemon, seeming to imply that it was quite another point: “Do you expect to continue your profession?”
He had no such intention, so far as his profession meant getting up at three o’clock in the morning to assuage the ills of humanity; but here, as before, the touch of such a question instantly stiffened him. “Oh, my profession! I rather wince at that grand old name. I’ve neglected my work so scandalously that I scarce know on what terms with it I shall be—though hoping for the best when once I’m right there again.”
Lady Canterville received these remarks in silence, fixing her eyes once more upon her husband’s. But his countenance really rather failed her; still with his hands in his pockets, save when he needed to remove his cigar from his lips, he went and looked out of the window. “Of course we know you don’t practise, and when you’re a married man you’ll have less time even than now. But I should really like to know if they call you Doctor over there.”
“Oh yes, universally. We’re almost as fond of titles as your people.”
“I don’t call that a title,” her ladyship smiled.
“It’s not so good as duke or marquis, I admit; but we have to take what we’ve got.”
“Oh bother, what does it signify?” his lordship demanded from his place at the window. “I used to have a horse named Doctor, and a jolly good one too.”
“Don’t you call bishops Doctors? Well, then, call me Bishop!” Jackson laughed.
Lady Canterville visibly didn’t follow. “I don’t care for any titles,” she nevertheless observed. “I don’t see why a gentleman shouldn’t be called Mr.”
It suddenly appeared to her young friend that there was something helpless, confused and even slightly comical in her state. The impression was mollifying, and he too, like Lord Canterville, had begun to long for a short cut. He relaxed a moment and, leaning toward his hostess with a smile and his hands on his little knees, he said softly: “It seems to me a question of no importance. All I desire is that you should call me your son-in-law.”