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Now he was before her, walking on the footpath, almost within reach of her whip. He did not recognise her, but as he passed on he did recognise Mr Onesiphorus Dunn, and stopped to speak to him. Or it might have been that Crosbie's friend Fowler Pratt stopped with this special object, for Siph Dunn was an intimate friend of Fowler Pratt's.
Lily, as she rode home, did not speak a word. She would have given worlds to be able to talk, but she could not even make a beginning. She heard Bernard and Siph Dunn chatting behind her, and hoped that they would continue to do so till she was safe within the house. They all used her well, for no one tried to draw her into conversation. Once Emily said to her, "Shall we trot a little, Lily?"
Bernard and Emily were not insatiable lovers, but nevertheless, Mrs Thorne had thought it proper to provide a fourth in the riding-parties, and had put Mr Dunn upon this duty. "Don't bother yourself about it, Siph," she had said; "only if those lovers should go off philandering out of sight, our little country lassie might find herself to be nowhere in the Park."
He had been talking to her about Lord De Guest, whom he had known, for Siph knew everybody, and Lily had begun to wonder whether he knew John Eames. She would have liked to hear the opinion of such a man about John Eames.
But it so happened that on a certain afternoon she found herself riding in Rotten Row alone with a certain stout gentleman whom she constantly met at Mrs Thorne's house. His name was Onesiphorus Dunn, and he was actually called Siph by his intimate friends.
A great many young ladies about London did call him Siph, and to him it was quite natural that they should do so. He was an Irishman, living on the best of everything in the world, with apparently no fortune of his own, and certainly never earning anything.
It had seemed as though Crosbie had been altogether outside the ken of her eyes, or the notice of her ears, and yet she had seen every motion of his body, and had heard every word which had fallen from his lips. Now, when he saluted her, she turned her face full upon him, and bowed to him. Then she rose from her seat, and made her way, between Siph Dunn and Pratt, out of the circle.
Mrs Thorne easily managed to send Emily Dunstable and Bernard away with her friend, and to tell Siph Dunn that he must manage for himself. In this way it was contrived that no one but Mrs Thorne should be with Lily Dale. "My dear," said Mrs Thorne, "it seemed to me that you were a little put out, and so I thought it best to send them all away." "It was very kind."
He stopped his horse also, falling a little behind Lily, so that he might not be supposed to have seen her tears, and began to hum a tune. Emily also, though not wickedly clever, understood something of it. "If Bernard says anything to make you angry, I will scold him," she said. Then the two girls rode on together in front, while Bernard fell back with Siph Dunn.
They had nearly completed their delightful but wearying task of gazing at pictures, and Mrs Harold Smith had declared that she would not look at another painting till the exhibition was open; three of the ladies were seated in the drawing-room, and Siph Dunn was standing before them, lecturing about art as though he had been brought up on the ancient masters; Emily and Bernard were lingering behind, and the others were simply delaying their departure till the truant lovers should have caught them.
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