Gobo hugged the railings. He was so close to Jim Lascelles that he nearly touched him with his spurs—dummy spurs, as Jim noted. Miss Perry was explaining that all the girls had white frocks at Buckingham Palace, and how she wished that Muffin had been there, as a white frock always suited her, although she was inclined to tear it, when Miss Featherbrain was met by the steady and unflinching gaze of Jim Lascelles. Instantly her hand went up, not one of darned cotton, but a yellow gauntleted affair that matched her hair, in quite the regulation Widdiford manner.
“Why—why,” she cried, “it’s Jim! Hallo, Jim!”
In the ears of Jim Lascelles the incomparably foolish speech had never sounded so absurd and so delicious. It was plainly the intention of Miss Perry to hold animated conversation with the undeniably handsome youth who returned her greeting. But the intervention of the highest branch of the peerage, as solemn as the British Constitution and as solid too, between her and the railings; and the fact that there was a resolutely oncoming rearguard in the person of the scandalized Mr. Bryant, who in his own mind was tolerably sure that the presumptuous young man by the railings had no connection with the peerage whatever, sufficed to keep Miss Perry in the straight path.
Therefore Jim Lascelles had to be content with one of the old Widdiford smiles, which nevertheless was enchanting, and a parting wave of the yellow gauntlet, which was the perfection of friendliness, comradeship, and natural simplicity. He stood to watch the cavalcade pass slowly down the ride, the magnificent chestnut and its rider the observed of all observers, for both were superb and profoundly simple works of nature. The red-faced and stolid personage on the gray, a more sophisticated pair, were yet well in the picture also, for if less resplendent, they too in their way were imposing.
Jim’s reverie was interrupted by a voice at his elbow.
“There they go,” it said, “the most ill-assorted pair in England.”
With a start of surprise Jim turned to find an immaculate beside him. Cheriton was wearing a light-gray frock-coat with an exaggerated air of fashion.
“Crabbed age and youth,” said Jim, yet quite without bitterness. He was still glowing with pleasure at his frank and friendly recognition.
“A pitiful sight,” said Cheriton. “A man of his age! How odd it is that some men are born without a sense of the incongruous!”
“Yes,” said Jim.