Austin laughed.  “Could you write me a prescription?”

“Oh, she’ll have you, Bob.  You don’t seem to realize that you are a good catch.”

Austin finished buckling his puttee before rising to his full height.  “That doesn’t mean anything to her.  She doesn’t need to make a catch.”

“Nonsense!  She’s just like all the others, only richer and nicer.  Go at her as if she were the corn-market; she won’t be half so hard to corner.  You have made a name for yourself, and a blamed sight more money than you deserve; you are young—­comparatively, I mean.”

The elder man stroked his shock of iron-gray hair for answer.

“Well, at any rate you are a picturesque personage, even if you can’t wear riding-clothes.”

“Doesn’t a man look like the devil in these togs?” Austin posed awkwardly in front of a mirror.

“There’s only one person who can look worse in riding-clothes than a man—­that’s a woman.”

“What heresy, particularly in a society doctor!  But I agree with you.  I learned to ride on her account, you know.  As a matter of fact, I hate it.  The sight of a horse fills me with terror.”

Doctor Suydam laughed outright at this.  “She tells me that you have a very good seat.”

“Really!” Austin’s eyes gleamed suddenly.  “You know I never had a chance to ride when I was a youngster—­in fact, I never had an opportunity to do anything except work.  That’s what makes me so crude and awkward.  What I know I have picked up during the last few years.”

“You make me tired!” declared the former.  “You aren’t—­”

“Oh, I don’t skate on waxed floors nor spill tea, nor clutch at my chauffeur in a tight place, but you know what I mean.  I feel lonesome in a dress-suit, a butler fills me with gloom, and—­Well, I’m not one of you, that’s all.”

“Perhaps that’s what makes a hit with Marmion.  She’s used to the other kind.”

“It seems to me that I have always worked,” ruminated the former speaker.  “I don’t remember that I ever had time to play, even after I came to the city.  It’s a mighty sad thing to rob a boy of his childhood; it makes him a dull, unattractive sort when he grows up.  I used to read about people like Miss Moore, but I never expected to know them until I met you.  Of course, that corn deal rather changed things.”

“Well, I should rather say it did!” Suydam agreed, with emphasis.

“The result is that when I am with her I forget the few things I have done that are worth while, and I become the farm-hand again.  I’m naturally rough and angular, and she sees it.”

“Oh, you’re too sensitive!  You have a heart like a girl underneath that saturnine front of yours, and while you look like the Sphinx, you are really as much of a kid at heart as I am.  Where do you ride to-day?”

“Riverside Drive.”

“What horse is she riding?”

“Pointer.”

The doctor shook his head.  “Too many automobiles on the Drive.  He’s a rotten nag for a woman, anyhow.  His mouth is as tough as a stirrup, and he has the disposition of a tarantula.  Why doesn’t she stick to the Park?”