Page:Tales of Three Cities (Boston, James R. Osgood & Co., 1884).djvu/159

Rh "Do Freer and his wife believe it?" Jackson Lemon went on, impatiently.

"They want you to go and see them: you can judge for yourself."

"I will go and see them, and tell them to mind their business."

"In Jermyn Street; but I forget the number. I am sorry the marchioness is n't American," Sidney Feeder continued.

"If I should marry her, she would be," said his friend. "But I don't see what difference it can make to you."

"Why, she 'll look down on the profession; and I don't like that from your wife."

"That will touch me more than you."

"Then it is true?" cried Feeder, more seriously, looking up at his friend.

"She won't look down; I will answer for that."

"You won't care; you are out of it all now."

"No, I am not; I mean to do a great deal of work."

"I will believe that when I see it," said Sidney Feeder, who was by no means perfectly incredulous, but who thought it salutary to take that tone. "I am not sure that you have any right to work,—you oughtn't to have everything; you ought to leave the field to us. You must pay the penalty of being so rich. You would have been celebrated if you had continued to practise,—more celebrated than any one. But you won't be now,—you can't be. Some one else will be, in your place."