CHAPTER V

I

One Hundred and Twenty-nine Curzon Street was the dowry that the third

Marquess of Longlan provided for his daughter, Lady Caroline Lacey, on

her marriage in 1818 with Viscount Clare, the only son of the second

Earl of Clarehaven. It was a double-fronted Georgian house with a

delicate fanlight over the door, from which a fan-shaped flight of steps

guarded by a pair of tall iron flambeau-stands led down to the pavement.

That famous old beau, the first marquess, had given an eye to the

architecture, and, being himself a man of fine proportions, had seen to

it that the rooms of his new house would set off his figure to

advantage. Solid without being stolid, dignified but never pompous,

graceful but nowhere flimsy, and for everybody except the servants, who

lived like corpses in a crypt, convenient--the town residence of Lord

Clarehaven was as desirable as those desirable young men of Assyria upon

whom in their blue clothes Aholah doted not less promiscuously than

house-agents have doted upon a good biblical word.

When the second earl took charge of his wife's dowry, the fashions of

the Regency were in the meridian, and the house was decorated and

furnished to suit the prevailing mode. Apart from the verse of the

period, there have been few manifestations of art and craft more

detestable either for beauty or for comfort than those of the Regency.

Great bellying lumps of furniture as fat and foul as the First Gentleman

himself, and with as much superfluity of ornament as the First

Gentleman's own clothes, were introduced into 129 Curzon Street to spoil

the fine severity of the Georgian structure. Ugly furniture was added by

the third earl, whose taste--he was a vice-chamberlain of the royal

household in the 'fifties--was affected by his position as a mind is

affected by misfortune. The dowager during the esthetic ardors that

glowed upon the first years of her married life hung a few green and

yellow draperies in the drawing-room, and during the early 'nineties she

stocked these with woolen spiders or with butterflies of silk and

velvet; in fact, when the fifth earl took over the control of his town

house it was filled from the cellars to the attics with the accumulated

abominations of eighty-five barbarous years. No doubt he would never

have noticed the ugliness of the furniture if the discomfort of it had

not been so obtrusive; but when he was planning to live merrily with his

bride in Curzon Street he invited Messrs. Waring & Gillow to bring the

house up to date with its own period and the present, allowing them a

free hand with everything except the chairs, beds, and sofas, of which

it was stipulated that none was to rate form or style above comfort. On

the whole the result was an improvement; and since there are always

enough relays of new competitors in the race for originality, purchasers

were soon found even for those triads of chairs that are still seen in

mid-Victorian drawing-rooms like empty cruets upon the mantelpiece of a

coffee-room, and Tony was able to get a good price for the furniture of

Gillows, who were by now as thoroughly worm-eaten as their handicraft.

The arrangement with the decorators being modified by Dorothy's

unwillingness to live in London, he postponed the complete renovation of

the house to that happy date in the future when he and she should agree

that East West, town's best.

Now at Clare, when Dorothy was lying in bed, careless of everything,

Tony invited her to choose patterns from the books of wall-papers and

chintzes sent down by Messrs. Waring & Gillow. Finding his wife in no

mood to choose anything, he decided to gratify as well as he was able

the taste she had expressed five or six years ago in the Halfmoon Street

flat. The result was a series of what are called "chaste color schemes,"

which after being debauched by numerous chairs upholstered in glossy

scarlet leather became positively meretricious under the temptation of

silver-cased blotters and almanacs; four months after Dorothy's

confinement the transformation of 129 Curzon Street into the dream of a

Vanity girl was complete. She was still in too listless a mood to do

anything except give a tired assent to whatever her husband proposed;

physically and emotionally she was worn out, and when a second

agricultural fete and flower-show was billed for August 25, 1908, she

scarcely had the heart to present in person the silver cup and five

pounds for the best flowers grown from the seeds she had supplied with

such enthusiasm. Every adjunct of the show accentuated her own failure;

from the women with their new babies to the chickens and the parsnips,

everything seemed a rebuke to her own sterility.

Dorothy's pride might often degenerate into mere self-confidence, but it

had hitherto been her mainstay in life; her failure to produce that son

had sapped the foundations of pride by destroying self-confidence; her

dignity as Tony's wife had been assailed, and she began to fret about

the shallowness of her feeling for her husband. She would have been able

to support a blow that fell with equal heaviness upon both, because she

would have rejoiced in proving to Tony that she was more courageous than

he; but he, from want of imagination, had let her feel that she had made

a fuss about nothing; his attitude had been such, indeed, that in

resuming relations with him she could not dispel the morbid fancy that

she was behaving like his kept mistress. Once, in her determination to

define their respective views of marriage, she asked him how he could

bear to make love to a woman who was apparently so cold; in his answer

he implied that her coldness was rather attractive than otherwise.

"But if you thought I really hated you to come near me?" she pressed.

"You don't really," he replied, and she turned away with a sigh of

exasperation at the astonishing lack of sensitiveness in the male.

"You're nervy and strung up just at present," he went on. "And perhaps

it has been bad for you to have so much of me all the time. But when you

go back to town and find that you're envied by other women...."

"Because I'm married to you?" she interrupted, sharply.

"No, no, Doodles, I'm not so conceited as all that. Envied because you

will be the loveliest of them all. But other men will envy me because

I've got you for a wife. I don't think you realize how lovely you are."

She did realize it perfectly; but she resented a compliment that was

inspired by self-satisfaction.

"The pleasure in being married to me, then," she challenged, "is that

you're keeping me from other men? You wouldn't mind if I told you that I

hated you, that I only married you to have rank and money, that I hooked

you in the way an angler hooks a fat trout?"

"I was quite content to be hooked," said Tony.

"If I were unfaithful to you?"

His eyes hardened for a moment, like those of a groom who is being

defied by a jibbing horse.

"Try it, old thing," he advised, and the whistle that lisped gently

between his set teeth made expressive the quick breaths of rage that

such a question evoked.

It was the day after the flower-show; they were sitting on the curved

seat at the end of the pergola. Dorothy's question had an effect upon

the conversation as if a painter had begged them to sustain a certain

attitude until he could perpetuate it by his art; the stillness of deep

summer undisturbed by a bird's note or by a whisper of a falling leaf

was like thick green paint from which their forms, hastily sketched in,

faintly emerged. Tony's whistle had ceased and he was stroking his

mustache as if the action could help him to realize that he was alive.

There seemed no reason why they should not sit there forever, like the

statues all round, or the ladies and lovers in a picture by Mr. Marcus

Stone. It was Tony who broke the spell by getting up and announcing

business with somebody somewhere.

Dorothy, left alone on the seat, watched his form recede along the

pergola, and asked herself in perplexity what she wanted as a substitute

for that well-groomed, easy, and assured piece of manhood. If she was

trying to tell herself that she pined to love a man without thought of

children or considerations of rank and fortune, she could always elope

with the first philanderer that presented himself. But she could not

imagine any man for whose sake she would sacrifice as much. To be sure,

she was not yet twenty-five; there lay before her many long years, one

of which a grand passion might shorten to an hour. But could she ever

fall in love? It was not merely because she was hard and ambitious that

she was not in love with Tony and that she could not imagine herself in

love with anybody else. In all her life no man had presented himself

whom she could imagine in the occupation of anything like the half of

one's personality that being in love would imply. Indeed, if she looked

back upon the men she had known, she liked Tony best personally, apart

from the material advantages that being married to him offered. Perhaps

the mood she was in was nothing more than a morbid fastidiousness caused

by physical exhaustion; perhaps by going up to town and leading another

sort of life she should be able to view marriage more naturally. She had

always criticized other women for the ease with which they fell into a

habit of indulging themselves with the traditional prerogatives of their

sex. Her own path had always lain so obviously in front of her nose that

she had been impatient of the incommunicable aspirations expressed by

other women with sighs and yearning glances; to her such women had

always appeared like the tiresome people who are proud of not possessing

what they would call "the bump of locality." Such dubious and

apprehensive temperaments had always irritated her; madness itself was

for Dorothy the result of a carefully cultivated hysteria; even illness

had always seemed to her only a fraudulent method of securing attention.

Was she now to array herself in the trappings of conventional

femininity? She bent her mind--and it was not a pliable mind--as

straight as she was able, and told herself that even if she failed

ultimately to produce an heir no one could question her fitness and

willingness to produce an heir. Anything that went wrong in the marriage

would not be her fault. As a wife she had justified herself; and if

motherhood was to be denied her--oh well, what did all this matter? She

was too much exhausted to keep her mind straight, and at the first

relaxation of her will it jumped away from her control like the

mainspring of a watch, the quivering coils of which, though they were

all of a piece, were impossible to trace consecutively to their

beginning or end. The monotonous green of late summer depressed her

wherever she looked; earth was hot and tired, as hot and tired as one of

the women at the show yesterday. Life was not much more varied than a

big turnip-field in which two or three coveys of birds were put up, some

to be killed, some to be wounded, some to whir away into turnip-fields

beyond.

"Which means that I'm still thoroughly exhausted," Dorothy murmured.

"But I can't think of the past because he is there, and the future seems

dreary because he will never be there."

When at the beginning of October the moment came to drive up to London,

the problems of birth and death, of love and happiness, were

overshadowed by the refusal of the car to go even as far as Exeter.

"We really must get a Lee-Lonsdale," said Tony. He made this

announcement in the same tone, Dorothy reflected bitterly, as he had

announced that they would have another baby.

When the butler opened the door of 129 Curzon Street, the house was full

of birds' singing.

"Canaries, don't you know, and all that," Tony explained. "I thought

you'd like to be reminded of the country."

Dorothy looked at him sharply to see if he was teasing her, but he was

serious enough, and for the first time since that night in June when her

son was born dead she was able to feel an affection for him so personal

and so intimate that if they had been alone at the moment she might have

flung herself into his arms. He had taken a box for the theater that

night and was most eager for her to dine out with him, but she was much

tired after the journey and excused herself. Since he was evidently

dismayed by the prospect of an unemployed evening, she begged him to go

without her, which after a short and not very stoutly contested argument

he agreed to do.

Dorothy went up early to her bedroom, where for a long while she sat at

the open window, listening to the traffic. How often she had sat thus at

the window of her bedroom in Halfmoon Street and what promises of

grandeur had then seemed implicit in the majestic sound. Only three

years ago she had still been in Halfmoon Street; she could actually

remember one October night like this, an October night when the still

warm body of a dead summer was being pricked by wintry spears. On such a

night as this Olive had called to her not to take cold, had warned her

that it was bad for her voice to sit at an open window. She had been

thinking about herself in Debrett and planning to be a marchioness; it

was Olive's interruption which had brought home sharply to her the

necessity of cutting herself off forever from the theater if she married

Clarehaven. Yes, it had been a night just like this, and that other

window was not five minutes away from where she was sitting now.

A taxi humming round a distant corner reminded Dorothy of an evening on

the lawns at Clare when Doctor Lane had lectured her on the habits of

night-jars.

"Country sights and country sounds," she exclaimed, and she shivered in

a revulsion against them all, because, though she had proved her ability

to share in that country life, the blind overseer Fate had withdrawn her

to another environment and the overseer must always be propitiated.

The sound of the traffic was casting a spell upon Dorothy's tired

nerves; she began to take pleasure in it, welcoming it as a sound

familiar and cherished over many years. She looked back at herself a

year ago sitting in Clarehaven church, with almost a blush for the

affectation of it all, or rather for what must have seemed like

affectation to other people. She had allowed herself to exaggerate

everything, to dream sublimely and wake ridiculously, to be more than

she was ever meant to be. Not music of wind and sea, but this dull music

of London traffic was the fit accompaniment for her. She knew that now,

when her own sighs absorbed in the countless sighs of the millions round

her took their place in the great harmony of human sorrow. Above the

castanets of hansoms and the horns of motors the omnibuses rolled like

drums ... the hansoms were going back, back, the motors were going

forward; but the omnibuses were going home, home, home. And was not her

own journey through life like journeys she had taken as a child when the

omnibus after a glittering evening went home, rumbling and rolling home?

Dorothy had nearly fallen asleep; waking to full consciousness with a

start, she laughed at her fancies; quickly shutting the window, she drew

the curtains and walked about the golden bedroom as if she would assure

herself that the evening was not nearly spent yet, that not for her was

some dim omnibus waiting to carry her home ... home. She checked the

fresh impulse to dwell upon the monotonous rumble of the traffic and

drove the sound from her mind. Of what could she complain, really? What

other girl like herself would not envy her good fortune? What other girl

would not laugh at her for thinking that life was dull because she had

failed at the first attempt to produce a son? In this comfortable

bedroom, amid flowers of chintz, was she not already more at home than

she had ever been along the herbaceous borders of Clare? The fact was

that her life at Clare had been a part sustained with infinite verve and

accomplishment through many months, but always a part. Yes, it had been

a part which she had sustained so brilliantly that she had nearly ruined

the well-mounted but not very brilliant play in which she had been

performing. The dowager had been right when she had expressed her fears

for the effect upon Tony of his wife's behavior. She had considered her

warning as kindly, but quite unnecessary; she had even pitied the poor

little beaver-like dowager for likening her own position with that rake

of a husband to that which Dorothy occupied in respect of the son. But

the dowager had been right. Herself had risked the substance for the

shadow, and in her lust for personal success she might abruptly have

found that the play had stopped running. Luckily, it was not too late to

remedy the mistake. Here was the scene set for a new act in which Tony

must be allowed his chance. Poor old boy, he was not asking for much,

and he was still so dependent upon her that it would be a pleasure to

spoil him a little now. Should she not really be flattered that he loved

her more than an heir to his name, his rank, and his fortune? What would

it signify if the house of Clare became extinct? Would those ladies in

the long gallery, those ladies simpering eternally at sea and sky, be a

whit less immobile if children laughed on the lawns below? Would they

blink their eyes or move a muscle of their rosy lips? Not they. And if

strangers held their beauty in captivity, would they care? Not they.

And if the earth fell into the sun so that nothing of poor mortality,

not even Shakespeare, endured, would they simper less serenely in the

moment before their painted lips blistered and were consumed? Not a whit

less serenely. None of the people on other planets would care if the

fifth Earl of Clarehaven was the last; even if the people of Mars had a

telescope big enough to see what was happening on earth, they would only

watch us with less compassion than we watch ants on a burning log.

"And if by chance they have got such a telescope," Dorothy murmured,

"how absurd we must look."

Earth shrank to nothing even as she spoke, for on that thought she fell

asleep where she was sitting and did not wake until Tony came back.

"Hullo, Doodles! Why do you go to sleep in your chair?" he asked.

"Did you enjoy the theater?"

"Well, as a matter of fact," he admitted, "I didn't use the box. I

thought, as you wouldn't come, I'd drop in and have a look at the new

show at the Vanity. Pretty good, really. Your friend Olive Fanshawe was

in a quintet. She has a few lines to speak, too, and looks very jolly. I

wish you'd come with me one night. I think you'd enjoy it."

"I will if you like," said Dorothy.

"No, really?" he exclaimed, his eyes lighting up. "Now, isn't that

splendid! I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll have a party for my

birthday next week. Dine at the Carlton. Two boxes at the Vanity, and

supper afterward at the Savoy. I say I shall enjoy it, Doodles!"

"How old will you be?" she asked, with a smile.

"Twenty-six. Aging fast. Have to hurry up and enjoy ourselves while we

can."

"I shall be twenty-five in March," she said.

Then suddenly she seemed able to throw off all her fatigue and to forget

all her disappointment.

"Sorry I've been so dull these last few weeks," she murmured. "Tony, do

you still love me?"

"You never need ask me that," he said. "But do you love me?"

She nodded.

"Couldn't you say it? You never have, you know. Couldn't you just

whisper 'yes'?"

"Yes."

"Cleared it," he shouted, and while he was in his dressing-room she

heard him singing:

"For Dolly's out and about again,

She doesn't give a damn for a shower of rain.

Here's Dolly with her collie!

And London, dear old London,

London is itself again."

This outburst was followed by a silence which was presently broken by a

sound of torn paper.

"What are you tearing up, Tony?"

"Oh, nothing," he called back, in accents of elaborate indifference.

"Only an old program."

In the morning Dorothy looked in the paper-basket, the bottom of which

was lightly powdered by the fragments of a letter. She stooped to pick

up the pieces; then she stopped.

"What does it matter who it was for? It was never sent. But I was only

just in time."

On October 15th a party of eight visited "The Belle of Belgravia" at the

Vanity. Besides Tony and Dorothy, there were Arthur Lonsdale, who had

long forgotten all about Queenie Molyneux and could now watch a musical

comedy as coldly as a dramatic critic whose paper did not depend on the

theatrical advertisements. He brought his partner, Adrian Lee, whose

pretty little wife, all cheeks and hair, looked much more like an

actress than Dorothy, though she was really the daughter of a bishop.

People used to wonder how a bishop came to have such a daughter; they

forgot that while he was a vicar he had written a commentary on the Song

of Solomon, with foot-notes as luscious as the plums that sink to the

bottom of a cake. Harry Tufton came, and a Mrs. Foster-ffrench who went

everywhere except where she most wanted to go and was always a little

resentful that even with her two "f's" she could not hook herself up to

some altitudes. However, that was Mrs. Foster-ffrench's private sorrow,

and she did not let it mar a jolly evening. The other guests were Capt.

Archibald Keith, late of the 16th Hussars, who had abandoned the cavalry

in order to write the librettos of musical comedies, and a Mrs.

Mainwaring, who kept a fashionable hat-shop in Bruton Street and was the

widow of poor Dick Mainwaring, a brother of Lord Hughenden. Everybody

always spoke about him as poor Dick Mainwaring, but whether because he

had been killed at Paardeburg or because he had married Rita Daubeny was

uncertain; it probably varied with the point of view of the speaker. The

friends of Mrs. Mainwaring put down any oddness in her behavior to

French creole blood and a childhood in Martinique; to the former was

also attributable her chic in hats; to the latter the dryness and pallor

of her complexion; French blood or French brandy, Martinique or Martell,

the Hon. Mrs. Richard Mainwaring certainly did stimulate conversation

just as paprika stimulates the appetite. But however jocund her life,

her hats were chaste, and however sharp her play, her name was

honorable. Moreover, so many people owed her money that they had to be

pleasant to her. Mrs. Foster-ffrench, in spite of her name, had no

French blood to excuse her odd behavior; in fact, she had nothing except

a hyphen and those two "f's." Mr. Foster-ffrench was a younger son who,

having failed to grow sisal profitably in the Bahamas, was now

experimenting in Mozambique with the jikungo or Inhambane nut, and

liable at any moment to experiment with vanila in Tahiti or pearls on

the Great Barrier Reef; the only experiment he was never likely to make

was going back to Mrs. Foster-ffrench. Dorothy wondered what Tony found

to attract him in such a gathering; yet he was in tremendous spirits,

obviously delighted that Archie Keith should have met the Vanity

comedian that afternoon and warned him who would be in front. He was

proud that all the girls on the stage kept their eyes on Dorothy

throughout the evening, proud that the comedian inserted two special

gags for the benefit of the jolly party, which were rewarded by a loud

burst of laughter; and when the alarmed audience trained their

opera-glasses upon the boxes as a beleagured garrison might train their

guns upon the wild yell of savages he was radiant. After the performance

they sat round a large circular table in the Savoy, and when the

orchestra played "Dolly and her Collie" there was so much applause from

the tables all round that Dorothy could not help feeling rather proud of

the pleasure her return to town had given and was touched to think that

her memory was still green. The evening wound up at the Lees' flat in

Berkeley Street, when Adrian Lee and Clarehaven hospitably lost a good

deal of money to their guests in the course of three hours' baccarat.

Now that Dorothy had broken her rule and had visited the Vanity for the

first time since she had left the boards, she felt that she could not

maintain her policy of isolation any longer; she told Clarehaven as much

when they were strolling back down Curzon Street and breathing in the

air of night after those feverish rooms.

"Doodles, my dear thing, I'm delighted! I never wanted you to give up

any of your old friends. It was you who insisted on cutting them out

like that."

"And if," she went on, "we can sit in a box with Rita Mainwaring, I

don't think I can keep up this pretense of not being able to meet

Olive."

"I quite agree with you. I should love to meet Olive again."

"Then what about asking her to lunch?" Dorothy suggested.

"The sooner the better," he assented, enthusiastically.

A note was sent round to the Vanity, in which Dorothy, without making

the least allusion to anything that had happened in the past, most

cordially invited Olive to lunch with them two days later. Olive

replied, thanking Dorothy for the invitation, but mentioned that she was

now living with Sylvia Scarlett, and, since she did not like to go

without her and since she knew Dorothy and Sylvia were no longer on good

terms, was afraid she must decline lunch, though she promised to come

and see her old friend some afternoon.

"Living with Sylvia Scarlett, eh?" commented Tony, with raised eyebrows.

They were sitting in the smoking-room, where in the silence that ensued

the red arm-chairs seemed to be commenting upon this problem raised so

suddenly, seemed, like wise and rubicund ministers of state, to be

bringing their minds to bear silently upon things in general. "Sylvia

Scarlett!" Dorothy kept saying to herself, while the scarlet leather

answered her. She was perplexed. For one reason she should like to meet

Sylvia again, because she felt that better, perhaps, than anybody Sylvia

would appreciate her point of view. Could she but bring herself to be

frank with Sylvia, she could think of no one who would respond with a

more intelligent sympathy to the tale of her disappointment. Moreover,

if she showed the least disinclination to exclude Sylvia she might give

Tony the impression that she was still resenting that week-end at

Brighton, a notion which her pride was not sufficiently subdued to

contemplate with equanimity. Yet to make friends again with Sylvia

openly would be to penetrate rather more deeply into the hinterland of

the bohemian seacoast than she had intended, even after going to the

Vanity with Mrs. Mainwaring and Mrs. Foster-ffrench.

"I suppose you wouldn't care to have Sylvia here," Tony said at last;

"though of course...."

Dorothy interrupted him sharply. "Why not?" she asked. "Why should I

object to have Sylvia here any more than I should object to being seen

at the theater with Rita Mainwaring?"

"I thought that perhaps...." he began again.

She told him to ring for a messenger-boy and immediately wrote to invite

Sylvia to lunch as well.

It was difficult, considering the circumstances in which Dorothy had

parted from Sylvia and Olive, for any of the girls to avoid a feeling of

constraint when they met again; Dorothy, for her part, had to make a

great effort not to let her nervousness give an impression that she was

being reserved with her old friends. Lonsdale, however, who had

fortunately been invited, was very talkative, and Tony was in boisterous

spirits, so boisterous, indeed, that once or twice Dorothy looked at him

in surprise. When he returned her glance defiantly she wondered if she

had not made a mistake in her policy; if before consenting to come down

to her husband's level she had properly safeguarded herself. No doubt in

spite of her disapproval he would have gambled and drunk and made an ass

of himself with the Mainwarings and the Foster-ffrenches, but by

withholding herself she would have retained, at any rate, as much power

over him as would have kept him outwardly deferential to his wife. Now

he was no longer afraid of her.

Dorothy was roused from her abstraction by hearing herself addressed as

Cousin Dorothy by Lonsdale. He was in a corner with Sylvia, and they

were amusing themselves, presumably at her expense; Dorothy darted an

angry look at Sylvia, who shook her head with so mocking a disclaimer

that Dorothy gave up the notion of confiding in her old friend. Sylvia

evidently still regarded her with hostility and contempt, and was as

ready to pour ridicule upon her now as she used to be in the

dressing-room on tour. On tour! The days on tour crowded upon her

memory. From the corner where Sylvia and Lonsdale were chatting she

heard Lily's name mentioned. What was that? Lily had married a croupier

in Rio de Janeiro? But how unimportant it was who married what in this

world. After so short a time, life lost its tender hues of sunrise or

sunset and became garish or dim. On tour! The funny old life trickled

confusedly past her vision like a runaway film, and she took Olive's

hand affectionately. Olive was as sympathetic as if she had never been

treated so heartlessly that day in Brighton, as eager to hear that

Dorothy was happy, as eager to accept her assurances that she was. Tears

stood in her eyes when she was told about the baby; but somehow her

sympathy was not enough for Dorothy, who only awarded her a half-hearted

sort of confidence that was sentimentalized to suit the listener. If she

could have confided in Sylvia she would have told the story without

sparing herself, but Sylvia had snubbed her; and, anyway, the past was

not to be recaptured by talking about it.

Notwithstanding Sylvia's indifference, Dorothy went out of her way to

invite her often to Curzon Street that autumn and early winter. She was

fascinated by her play at baccarat and _chemin de fer_; she wondered

upon what mysterious capital she was drawing, for, though her name was

not coupled with any man who would pay her debts, she was apparently

able to lose as much money as she chose. It seemed impossible that it

should be her own money; but so many things about Sylvia seemed

impossible. In January Olive showed symptoms of a tendency to

consumption; Sylvia, without waiting an instant to win back any of her

losses, took her off to Italy for a long rest.

"_I_ despise Tony, and _she_ despises me," Dorothy thought. "But isn't

she right?"

She looked round her at the drawing-room of 129 Curzon Street, where in

a foliage of tobacco smoke the faces of the gamblers stared out like

fruit, and upon the green tablecloth the cards lay like fallen petals.

Was not Sylvia right to despise her for encouraging Mrs. Mainwaring and

Captain Keith and Mrs. Foster-ffrench and half a dozen others like them?

Was not Sylvia right to despise her for setting out as a countess so

haughtily and coming down to this? How she must have laughed when Olive

told her about the parting in Brighton, and how little she would believe

her tales of rural triumphs like the meet at Five Tree Farm. Sylvia

probably considered that she had found her true level in seeing that her

gambling guests were kept well supplied with refreshments.

In March even Clarehaven grew tired of baccarat with Captain Keith and

the rest of them, and one morning a big new six-cylinder Lee-Lonsdale

was driven up to 129 Curzon Street by the junior member of the firm, who

wanted to advertise his wares on the Continent. Clarehaven's man and

Dorothy's maid took the heavy luggage by train; the car with Dorothy,

Lonsdale, Clarehaven, and a chauffeur swept like an arpeggio the road

from London to Dover, transhipped to Calais, and made a touring-car

record from Paris to Monte Carlo, whence Lonsdale, after booking some

orders, returned to England without it. Tony lost five thousand pounds

at roulette, a small portion of which he recovered over pigeons. He

would probably have lost much more had not Dorothy told him, on a

rose-hung night of stars and lamplight, that she was going to have

another baby and that she must go back to Clare.

The prospective father was so pleased with the news that he set out to

beat the record established by Lonsdale on the way down, drove into a

poplar-tree, and smashed the car. Dorothy had a miscarriage and lay ill

for a month at a small village between Grenoble and Lyons. Tony was

penitent; but he was obviously bored by having to spend this idle month

in France, and as soon as Dorothy was well enough to travel and he had

assured himself that she was not nervous after the accident, he drove

northward faster than ever. They reached Clare at the end of May.

II

The bluebells were out when Dorothy came home, their pervasive sweetness

sharpened by the pungency of young bracken; even as sometimes the

heavenly clouds imitate the hills and valleys of earth or lie about at

sunset like islands in a luminous and windless ocean, so now earth

imitated heaven, and the bluebells lay along the woodland like drifts of

sky. May was not gone when Dorothy came back; the cuckoo was not even

yet much out of tune; the fallow deer did not yet display all their

snowy summer freckles; the whitethroat still sang to his lady sitting

close in the nettles by the orchard's edge; apple-blossom was still

strewn upon the lengthening grass; the orange-tip still danced along the

glades; the red and white candles upon the horse-chestnuts were not yet

burned out. It was still May; but June like a grave young matron stood

close at hand, and May like a girl grown tired of her flowers and of her

finery would presently fall asleep in her arms. And like the merry month

Dorothy pillowed her head upon the green lap of June. For several weeks

she made no allusion to the accident on the way home from Monte Carlo;

nor, beyond the perpetually manifest joy she took in the seasonable

pageant, did she give any sign of her distaste for the way she and Tony

had spent the past year. The problem of what was to happen next autumn

was not yet ripe for discussion, and in order to enjoy fully the present

peace Dorothy persuaded Clarehaven to accept an invitation to go fishing

in Norway, after which he would camp with the yeomanry for three weeks;

and then another year would have to be catered for so that not one

minute of it should be wasted--in other words, that it should be

squeezed as dry as an orange to extract from it the last drop of

pleasure. Tony wanted her to come with him to Norway, but she made her

health an excuse and sent him off alone.

In July the countess and the dowager were pacing the turf that ran by

the edge of that famous golden border now in its prime. The rich light

of the summer afternoon flattered the long line of massed hues which had

been so artfully contrived. The unfamiliar beauty of the bronzed

Himalayan asphodels, of citron kniphofias from Abyssinia and

sulphur-lilies from the Caucasus, of ixias tawny as their own African

lions, of canary-colored Mexican tigridias and primrose-hooded gladioli

that bloom in the rain forest of the Victoria Falls, mingled with the

familiar forms of lemon-pale hollyhocks and snapdragons, with violas

apricot-stained, and with many common yellow flowers of cottage gardens

to which the nurserymen had imparted a subtle and aristocratic shade.

"What a success your golden border has been," the dowager exclaimed.

Dorothy felt suddenly that she could not any longer tolerate such

compliments. The life-blood of her marriage seemed to be running dry

before her eyes while she was amusing herself with golden borders, and

she wanted her mother-in-law to understand how critical the position

was, and what disasters lurked in the future while the sun flattered the

flowers, and she flattered her son's wife.

"I'm going to be very frank," Dorothy began. "I want to know more about

Tony's father."

The dowager with a look of alarm leaned over the border to hide her

embarrassment.

"My dear," she said, "how cleverly you've combined this little

St.-John's-wort with these copper-colored rock-roses. They look

delightful together."

"Why did you marry him?" Dorothy asked.

"Dorothy! Such a question, but really, I suppose--well, I don't know. I

suppose really because he asked me."

"Your mother didn't insist upon it?"

"Well, of course, my mother didn't oppose it," the dowager admitted.

"No, certainly not ... she didn't actually oppose it; in fact possibly

... yes ... well.... I think one might almost say that she.... Oh,

aren't these trolliums gorgeous? They are trolliums, aren't they? I

always get confused between trilliums and trolliums?"

"Trolli_us_. Persuaded you into it?" Dorothy supplemented. "Did you love

him?"

This was altogether too intimate an inquiry, and the dowager, failing to

bury her blushes in the opulent group of butter-colored flowers that she

was bending over to admire, took refuge in her bringing-up.

"We were brought up differently in those days," she said. "I don't think

that men depended upon their wives to quite the same extent they do

now."

"I'm asking you all this," Dorothy explained, "because as far as the

future is concerned Tony and I are standing now at crossroads. If I

oppose or, even without opposing them, if I fail to share in his

pleasures, my attitude won't have any sobering effect. But if I take

part with him willingly and enjoy what he enjoys, it may be that I shall

have enough influence to prevent his going too far. Frankly, he doesn't

seem to have an idea that there may be something else in life besides

self-indulgence, the instant and complete self-indulgence that he always

allows himself. Money and rank only exist for him because they are

useful to that end. The only thing he was ever denied for five minutes

of his life was myself, and after a period of active sulking he got me.

I suppose you spoiled him, really."

The dowager looked melancholy.

"I'm not reproaching you," said Dorothy. "I quite understand the

temptation. That's why I asked if you ever loved your husband. I thought

that perhaps you didn't and that you'd had to love Tony much more in

consequence. I'm sorry about that son of mine, because I should have

liked to prove that it is possible to devote oneself utterly to a son

without spoiling him. Meanwhile, I'm afraid it's too late to do anything

with Tony. You must forgive me for this attack upon illusions. I shall

never make another. I only wanted you to know, because you were kind to

me when I first came here, that I've done my best and that there's

nothing more to be done."

"But you're so beautiful," said the dowager. "I was never beautiful."

"Oh, so far as keeping him more or less faithful is worth while, I don't

suppose I shall have the least difficulty," Dorothy admitted. "But each

time I tame him with a kiss I reduce my own self-respect a little bit,

and I blunt his respect for me. If I were his mistress, my kisses would

be bribes to make him spend money on me; as his wife my kisses are

bribes to prevent his spending money on other women. Anyway, this is the

last that you or any one else shall ever hear on this rather unpleasant

subject. I think these tigridias that Mr. Greenish was so keen to

combine with the ixias were a mistake. They are quite faded by the

afternoon."

It was now Dorothy's turn to direct the conversation toward flowers,

while the dowager endeavored to keep it personal.

"I've often thought," she began, "what a pity it was for you to cut

yourself off so completely from your own family."

"I certainly shouldn't find them of any help to me now," said Dorothy.

"Well, I don't know. I think that a mother can always be helpful," the

dowager argued. "I think it's a pity that you should have felt the

necessity of eliminating your family like this. I dare say I was to

blame in the first place, and I'm afraid that I gave you the impression

that we were much more snobbish down here than we really are. Your

impulse was natural in the circumstances, but I had hoped that I had

been able to prove to you that my opposition was only directed against

your profession, and you who know what Tony is will surely appreciate my

alarm at the idea of his marrying merely to gratify himself at the

moment. My own dear old mother was perhaps a little more sensitive than

I am to old-fashioned ideas of rank. She belonged to a period when such

opinions were widely spread in the society she frequented. I confess

that since she died I have found myself inclining more and more every

day to what would once have been called Red Radicalism. You know, I

really can't help admiring some of the things that this dreadful

government is trying to do." The epithet was so persistently applied by

the county that for the dowager it had lost any independent

significance; it was like calling a tradesman "dear sir."

Dorothy was tempted to ask the dowager if she did believe the account

she had given of her family, but she felt that if she suggested even the

possibility of such skepticism she should be admitting its

justification. And then suddenly she had a profound regret that her

mother had never seen Clare, had never trodden this ancient turf nor sat

beneath those cedar-trees. If the dowager had extended the courtesy of

breeding to accept those legends her daughter-in-law had spread about

herself, her courtesy would certainly not be withheld from accepting

that daughter-in-law's mother. The idea took shape; it positively would

be jolly to invite her mother to stay for a month at Clare. Tony would

not be bored; he would be away all the time.

"And not merely your family," the dowager was saying. "Oh no, it's not

merely cutting yourself from them, but also from your friends. I've

heard somebody called Olive alluded to once or twice, and surely she

would enjoy visiting here. Though please don't think me a foolish

busybody. Perhaps Olive prefers London."

"Olive has just got married. She was married last week."

"Then I've heard you talk about a Sylvia, who possibly might care to

stay down here. Dear child, don't misunderstand me, I beg. I'm only

trying to suggest that you are conceivably making a mistake in dividing

your life into two. After all, look at this border. See how the

old-fashioned favorites of us all are improved by these rarer flowers.

And do notice how well the simple flowers hold their own with those

exotics that have been planted out from the greenhouse. You see what I'm

trying to tell you? If Tony has certain tastes, if he likes people of

whom you and I might even mildly disapprove, let him see them here in

another setting. However, that you must decide later on. The only thing

I should like to lay stress upon is your duty toward your family...."

"To my mother only," Dorothy interrupted. "I have no duty toward my

father."

"Perhaps you will think differently when you have seen your mother. I

like her so much already. How could I do otherwise when she has given me

a daughter-in-law for whom I have such a great admiration?"

Dorothy took the dowager's hand and looked down earnestly and

affectionately into her upturned gaze.

"Why are you always so sweet to me?" she asked.

"Whatever I am, my dear child, it is only the expression of what I

feel."

That evening Dorothy wrote to her mother.

CLARE COURT, DEVON,

_July 8, 1909_.

MY DEAR MOTHER,--Such a long time since I saw you. Don't you think

you could manage a visit to Clare next week? Come for at least a

month. It will do you all the good in the world and I should so

much enjoy seeing you. You will find my mother-in-law very

sympathetic. I had thought of suggesting that you should bring

Agnes and Edna with you, but I think that perhaps for the first

time you'd rather be alone. The best train leaves Paddington at

eleven-twenty. Book to Cherrington Lanes and change at Exeter. On

second thoughts I'll meet you at Exeter on Wednesday next. So don't

make any excuses.

Your loving daughter,

DOROTHY.

The prospect of her mother's visit was paradoxically a solace for

Dorothy's disappointed maternity. The relation between them was turned

upside down, and her mother became a little girl who must be looked

after and kept from behaving badly, and who when she behaved well would

be petted and spoiled.

Heaven knows what domestic convulsions and spiritual agitations braced

Mrs. Caffyn to telegraph presently:

Am bringing three brats will they be enough.

For a moment Dorothy thought that she was coming with Vincent, Gladys,

and Marjorie, so invariably did she picture her family as all of the

same age as when seven years ago she first left Lonsdale Road to go to

the stage. A little consideration led her to suppose that _hats_ not

_brats_ were intended, and she telegraphed back:

You will want a nice shady hat for the garden.

Dorothy went to meet Mrs. Caffyn at Exeter in order that the three hours

in the slow train between there and Cherrington Lanes might give her an

opportunity of recovering herself from that agitation which had made her

telegram so ambiguous. It was impossible to avoid a certain amount of

pomp at the station, because the station-master, on hearing that her

ladyship was expecting her ladyship's mother, led the way to the

platform where the express would arrive and unrolled before her a red

carpet of good intentions.

"Stand aside there," he said, severely, to a boy with a basket of

newspapers.

"First stop Plymouth," shouted the porters when the express came

thundering in.

"Stand aside," thundered the station-master, more loudly; perhaps he was

addressing the train this time.

Mrs. Caffyn looked out of a second-class compartment and popped in again

like some shy burrowing animal that fears the great world.

"What name, my lady, would be on the luggage?" asked the station-master

when, notwithstanding her emersion from a second-class compartment, he

had seen Mrs. Caffyn embraced by her ladyship.

"Caffyn! Caffyn!" he bellowed. "Stand aside there, will you? Both vans

are being dealt with, my lady," he informed her.

The luggage was identified; a porter was bidden to carry it to No. 5

platform; and the station-master, taking from Mrs. Caffyn a string-bag

in which nothing was left except a paper bag of greengages, led the way

to the slow train for Cherrington.

"I traveled second-class," Mrs. Caffyn whispered, nervously, while the

station-master was stamping about in a first-class compartment, dusting

the leather seats and arranging the small luggage upon the rack. "I

hesitated whether I ought not to travel third, but father was very nice

about it."

"Please change this ticket to first-class as far as Cherrington Lanes,

Mr. Thatcher," said Dorothy.

"Immediately, my lady," he announced; and as he hurried away down the

platform Mrs. Caffyn regarded him as the Widow Twankay may have regarded

the Genie of the Lamp.

"I've brought five hats with me," Mrs. Caffyn announced when the slow

train was on its way and Mr. Thatcher was left standing upon the

platform and apparently wondering if he could not give it a push from

behind as a final compliment to her ladyship. "And now--oh dear, I must

remember to call you Dorothy, mustn't I? By the way, you know that

Dorothy is going to have a baby in November? Her husband is so pleased

about it. He's doing very well, you know. Oh yes, the Norbiton Urban

District Council have intrusted him with--well, I'm afraid I've

forgotten just what it is, but he's doing very well, and I thought you'd

be interested to hear about Dorothy. But I really _must_ remember not to

call you Norah."

"It wouldn't very much matter, mother."

"Oh, wouldn't it?" Mrs. Caffyn exclaimed, brightening. "Well, now, I'm

sure that's a great weight off my mind. All the way down I've been

worrying about that. And now just tell me, because I don't want to do

anything that will make you feel uncomfortable. What am I to call your

sisters-in-law? I understand about your mother-in-law. She will be Lady

Clarehaven. Is that right? But your sisters-in-law?"

"Bella and Connie."

"Bella and Connie?" repeated Mrs. Caffyn. "Nothing else? I see. Well, of

course, in that case I don't think I shall feel at all shy."

Although Dorothy was no longer concerned whether her mother did or did

not behave as if she were in the habit of visiting at great houses

during the summer, she could not resist indulging her own knowledge a

little, not with any idea of display, but because she enjoyed the

feeling that somebody was dependent upon her superior wisdom in worldly

matters. Mrs. Caffyn enjoyed her lessons, just as few women--or men, for

that matter--can resist opening a book of etiquette that lies to hand.

They would not buy one for themselves, because that would seem to

advertise their ignorance; but if it can be read without too much

publicity it will be read, for it makes the same appeal to human egoism

that is made by a medical dictionary or a work on palmistry. One topic

Dorothy did ask Mrs. Caffyn to avoid, which was the life of her own

mother. After that conversation by the golden border she had little

doubt that the dowager did not accept as genuine the tapestry she had

woven of her life; but that was no reason for drawing attention to all

the fabulous beasts in the background.

"Perhaps you'd better not say anything about Grandmother Doyle," Dorothy

advised. "I had to give an impression that she was related to Lord

Cleveden, and if you talk too much about her it would make me look

rather foolish."

"But she did belong to the same family," said Mrs. Caffyn.

"Yes, but I'd rather you didn't mention it. You can talk about Roland

and Cecil and Vincent, only please avoid the topic of Grandmother

Doyle."

"Of course I'll avoid anything you like," Mrs. Caffyn offered. "And

perhaps I'd better throw these greengages out of the window."

The dowager was much too tactful, as Dorothy had foreseen, to ask Mrs.

Caffyn any questions; she, with a license to talk about her children,

was never at a loss for conversation. There is no doubt that she

thoroughly enjoyed herself at Clare, and with two garden hats worn

alternately she sat in placid survey of her daughter's grandeur, drove

with the dowager in the chaise, congratulated Mrs. Beadon and Mrs.

Kingdon upon their children, patted every dog she met, and went home

first-class surrounded by baskets of peaches.

Notwithstanding the dowager's advice, Dorothy sent her mother home

before Tony came back, not because she was ashamed of her, but because

she dreaded his geniality and cordial invitations to bring the whole

family to Curzon Street. She could not bear the idea of her father's

arriving at all hours, for since the revelation of his tastes that night

in St. John's Wood she fancied that he would rather enjoy the excuse his

son-in-law's house would offer him of forgetting that he was still

secretary of the Church of England Purity Society. So long as Tony did

not meet any of her family he would not bother about them; but if he

did, the temptation to his uncritical hospitality would be too strong.

The partridges were very plentiful that autumn at Clare; the pheasants

never gave better sport. Dorothy invited Olive and her husband, a

pleasant young actor called Airdale, to visit Clare, but Olive had to

decline, because she was going to have a baby. Sylvia Scarlett Dorothy

did not invite; but Sylvia Lonsdale came with her brother, and late in

the autumn the Clarehavens went to stay with the Clevedens in

Warwickshire. Lord Cleveden talked to Tony about the need for a strong

colonial policy, and Lady Cleveden talked to Dorothy about the

imperative necessity of finding a wife for Arthur at once. The shooting

was not so good as at Clare, and Tony decided that he required London as

a tonic for the rural depopulation of his mind.

"These fellows who've been in administrative posts get too

self-important," he confided to Dorothy. "Now I don't take any interest

in the colonies. Except, of course, British East and the Straits. When a

fellow talks to me about Queensland my mind becomes a blank. I feel as

if I was being prepared for Confirmation, don't you know?"

They reached town toward the end of November, and within a week the old

set was round them. Baccarat and _chemin de fer_, the Vanity and the

Orient, smart little dances and rowdy little suppers, Mrs.

Foster-ffrench and the Hon. Mrs. Richard Mainwaring, they were back in

the middle of them all. Sylvia Scarlett turned up again, still

apparently with plenty of money to waste on gambling. She and Dorothy

drifted farther apart, if that were possible, and their coolness was

added to by Sylvia's recommendation of a rising young painter called

Walker for Dorothy's portrait, which Dorothy considered a failure,

though when afterward she was painted by an artist who had already risen

that was a failure, too. Sylvia seemed to misunderstand her wantonly;

Dorothy armed herself against her old friend's contempt and tried to

create an impression of complete self-sufficiency. Once in the spring an

occasion presented itself for knocking down the barrier they had erected

between themselves. Sylvia had just brought the sum of her losses at

cards to over six hundred pounds, and Dorothy, on hearing of it,

expressed her concern.

"I suppose you wonder where I find the money to lose?" Sylvia asked.

"Oh no, I wasn't thinking that. I'm not interested in your private

affairs," said Dorothy, freezing at the other's aggressive tone.

"No?" said Sylvia. "You easily forget about your friends' private

affairs, don't you? But I warned Olive that your chauffeur wouldn't be

able to find the way to West Kensington."

"How can you...." the countess broke out. Then she stopped herself. If

she tried to explain what had kept her from visiting Olive Airdale all

these months, she should have to reveal her own intimate hopes, her own

jealousy and disillusionment; she would prefer that Sylvia supposed it

was nothing more than snobbery that kept her away from Olive. If once

she began upon explanations she should have to explain why she so seldom

visited or spoke of her family. She should have to admit that she could

no longer answer for Tony, even so far as to be sure that he would not

invite her father to sit down with him to baccarat. And even those

explanations would not be enough; she should have to go back to the

beginning of her married life and expose such rags and tatters of

dreams. Her mind went back to that railway carriage on a wet January

afternoon when "Miss Elsie of Chelsea" traveled from Manchester to

Birmingham. She remembered the supper that was kept waiting for Sylvia

and her cheeks all dabbled with tears and a joke she had made about

trusting in God and keeping her powder dry. She had tried to win

Sylvia's confidence then and she had been snubbed. Should she volunteer

her own confidence now?

"I'm sorry you've lost so much money in my house," said the countess.

Then she blushed; the very pronoun seemed boastful.

"Never mind. I'm going down to Warwickshire to-morrow to help Olive

bring an heir into the world."

"Does she want a girl or a boy?" Dorothy asked.

"My dear," said Sylvia, "she is so anxious not to show the least sign of

favoritism even before birth that in order to achieve a perfect

equipoise she'll either have to have twins or a hermaphrodite."

In April Dorothy heard that her friend actually had produced twins.

"It seems so easy," she sighed, "when one hears about other people."

"Cheer up, Doodles," said Tony. "I won four hundred last night. It's

about time I got some of my own back from Archie Keith; he's been

plucking us all for months, lucky devil. I shall chuck shimmy."

"I wish you would," said Dorothy.

"Solemn old Doodles," he laughed. "Harry Tufton wants me to take up

racing. By Jove, I'm not sure I sha'n't. You'd like that better,

wouldn't you?"

"I'd like anything better than these eternal cards," she declared,

passionately.

At the same time she was a little nervous of the new project, and she

took an early opportunity of speaking about it to Tufton, who addressed

her with the accumulated wisdom of the several thousand hours he had

spent in the Bachelors' Club.

"My dear Dorothy," he began, flashing her Christian name as his mother

flashed her diamonds. "I'm very glad you've broached this subject. The

fact is, Tony really must draw in a little bit. I don't know how much

he's lost these last two years; but he has lost a good deal, and it

certainly isn't worth while losing for the benefit of people like Archie

Keith and Rita Mainwaring. Only the other day at the Bachelors' I was

speaking to Hughenden, and he said to me, 'Harry, my boy, why don't you

exercise your influence with Tony Clarehaven and get rid of that harpy

who unfortunately has the right to call herself my sister-in-law?' Well,

that was rather strong, don't you know? And your cousin Paignton spoke

to me about him, told me his father was rather worried about Tony--the

Chatfield push feel it's not dignified. As I said to him: 'My dear

fellow, if you want to lose money, why don't you lose money in a

gentlemanly way? There are always horses.'"

"But I don't want him to lose his money at all," Dorothy protested.

"Quite, quite," Mr. Tufton quacked. "But you'd prefer him to lose money

over horses than present it free of income tax to Archie Keith and Rita

Mainwaring? At this rate he'll soon lose all his old friends, as well as

his money."

Dorothy looked at the speaker; she was wondering if this was the

fidgeting of a more than usually apprehensive ship's rat.

III

The Clarehaven property outside the park itself did not now include more

than three thousand acres; but some speculations in which the fourth

earl indulged after selling the old Hopley estate had grown considerably

in value during his son's minority; and when Tony came of age, in

addition to his land, which, after the payment of the dowager's jointure

and all taxes, brought him in a net income of about three thousand

pounds a year, he had something like seventy thousand pounds invested in

Malayan enterprises which paid 10 per cent, and brought up his net

income to well over eight thousand pounds. He had already been forced to

sell out a considerable sum for the benefit of Captain Keith, Mrs.

Mainwaring, and the rest of them; but should he decide to start a

racing-stable he would have plenty of capital left on which to draw.

Dorothy protested that he ought not to look upon a racing-stable as a

sound and safe investment for capital that was now producing a steady

income and that, with rubber booming as it was, would probably be much

augmented in the near future. Yet she was afraid to be too discouraging,

for, whatever might be urged against horse-racing, it offered a more

dignified activity to a gambler than baccarat.

Clarehaven began his career on the turf with a sobriety which contrasted

with his extravagance at cards. He bought the stable of Mr. Tufton,

senior, and, leaving it in the cautious hands of old William Cobbett at

Newmarket, was content during his first season to compete in a few minor

handicaps and selling-plates. Such betting as he did was, on the whole,

lucky; he found himself toward the end of the season with a margin of

profit; and triumphantly he announced to Dorothy that he was going to

invest in some really first-class yearlings at Tattersall's and

Doncaster. She did not dissuade him, because she had had a talk with

honest old William Cobbett, who had assured her that his lordship was

willing to listen to his advice, and that if he would be guided by him

there was no reason why his lordship should not win some of the great

classic races the year after next, fortune being favorable. He spoke of

the black, white, and purple of Clarehaven as of colors once famous upon

famous courses, and implied that Saturday afternoons at Windsor or

Lingfield Park were hardly worthy of the time-honored combination.

Dorothy could not help agreeing with the trainer; throughout this first

season there had been a great deal too much of Captain Keith and Mrs.

Foster-ffrench, too much of a theatrical garden-party about those

Saturday afternoons, and although this year Tony had been lucky, another

year he might be unlucky and fritter away his money and his reputation

in the company of people who saw no difference between the green baize

of a card-table and the green turf of a racecourse. Several people had

talked of the fourth earl's great deeds upon the turf during the

'seventies; she, still susceptible to intimations of grandeur, viewed

with dismay these degenerate week-ends and encouraged Tony to aim

higher. If he would not speak in the House of Lords, he might at least

win the Derby; and if he won the Derby, surely his lust for gambling

would be satiated and he might retire to Clare to raise blood-stock. The

idea of owning some mighty horse, the paragon of Ormonde or Eclipse or

Flying Childers, obsessed her; she pictured ten years hence a small boy

attired in Gainsborough blue, proudly mounted upon a race-horse that

should be the sire and grandsire and great-grandsire of a hundred

classic winners. She became poetical, so keen was her ambition, so vivid

her hope; this mighty horse should be called Moonbeam, should be a ray

from the full moon of Clare to illuminate them all--Anthony--herself,

that son, who might almost be called Endymion. Why not? Disraeli had

called one of his heroes Endymion. Affected? Yes, but Endymion Viscount

Clare! Why should Endymion for a boy be more affected than Diana for a

girl? And why not Diana, too? Lady Diana Clare! They might be twins. Why

not? Mrs. Beadon had produced twins, Olive had produced twins. Moonshine

suffused Dorothy's castle in Spain, and moonstruck she paced the

battlements.

Tony bought a string of horses at Tattersall's, and at Doncaster paid

L600 and L750, respectively, for two yearlings with which old William

Cobbett expressed himself particularly well satisfied. It happened that

year that a young Greek called Christides, who had lately come of age,

won the Champagne Stakes and, in his elation, bought a yearling for

three thousand guineas. It further happened that after a triumphal

dinner he gave to several friends, among whom was Tony, he lost twice

that sum at auction bridge. Though Mr. Christides was extremely rich,

his native character asserted itself by an abrupt return to prudence. He

had allowed himself a fixed sum to spend at Doncaster, and, having

exceeded his calculations, he must sell the yearling--a black colt by

Cyllene out of Maid of the Mist. There was no question that he was the

pick of the yearlings; if old William Cobbett had not protested so

firmly against the price, Clarehaven would have been tempted to buy him

at the sale. Dorothy, with her mind still a tenant of Spanish castles,

saw in the Maid of the Mist colt the horse of her dreams, and by letting

her superstition play round the animal she became convinced that it held

the fortunes of Clare. Was not the sire Cyllene, which easily became

Selene--Dorothy was deep in moon-lore--and would not the offspring of

Selene and Maid of the Mist be well called Moonbeam? Moreover, was not

the colt black with one splash of white on the forehead? When,

therefore, Mr. Christides offered the yearling to settle his losses with

Tony, in other words for L2,722, Dorothy was anxious for him to accept.

Old William Cobbett was frightened by the price, but he could urge

nothing against the colt except, perhaps, the slightest tendency to a

dipped back, so slight, however, that when Mr. Christides, still true to

his native character, knocked off the odd L22, the small sum was enough

to cure the slight depression.

Dorothy thoroughly enjoyed the winter that followed the purchase of the

colt. As soon as Moonbeam--of course he was given the name at once--was

safe in William Cobbett's stable the trainer admitted that there was not

another yearling to touch him. In the two colts which he himself had

advised his patron to buy he could hardly bring himself to take the

least interest, and in fact both of them afterward did turn out

disappointments, one bursting blood-vessels when called upon for the

least effort, and the other a duck-hearted beast that for all his fine

appearance never ran out a race. But Moonbeam was everything that a colt

could be.

"The heart of a lion," said honest old William, "and as gentle as a dove

with it all. Be gad! my lady, I believe you're a real judge of

horseflesh, and damme--forgive the uncouth expression--but damme, if

ever I go to another sale without you."

"But will he win the Derby?" Dorothy asked.

"Well now, come, come, come! This is early days to begin prophesying.

But I wouldn't lay against him, no, begad! I wouldn't lay ten to one

against him--not now I wouldn't. Dipped back? Not a bit. If ever I said

his back was dipped I must have been dipped myself. You beauty! You

love! You jewel!"

After which honest old William took out a bandana handkerchief as big

and bright as the royal standard and blew his nose till the stable

reverberated with the sound.

"See that? Not a blink," he chuckled. "Not a blink, begad! That colt, my

lady, is the finest colt ever seen at Cobbett House. You bird! You gem!"

Tony himself was as enthusiastic as Dorothy or the trainer, and there

was no talk of London for a long while. He rented a small hunting-lodge

in the neighborhood to please Dorothy, and what between shooting over

the Cambridgeshire turnips and hunting hard with two or three noted

packs the winter went past quickly enough. Even better than the shooting

and the hunting were the February days when Moonbeam was put into

stronger work and, in the trainer's words, "ate it."

"He's a glutton for work," said honest old William.

Dorothy and he used to ride on the Heath and watch the horses at

exercise, and if only Moonbeam was successful next season with his

two-year-old engagements and if only he would win the Derby and if only

next year she might have a son....

Moonbeam's first public appearance was at the Epsom Spring Meeting when

he ran unplaced in the Westminster Plate, much to Dorothy's alarm.

"He wasn't intended to do anything," the trainer explained, soothingly.

"This was just to see how he and Joe Flitten took to each other. Well,

Joe, what do you think of him?"

"All right, Mr. Cobbett," said the young jockey, who was considered to

be the most promising apprentice at headquarters.

The colt's next engagement was for the Woodcote Stakes at the Epsom

Summer Meeting, when he was ridden by Harcourt, one of the leading

jockeys of the day, and was backed to win a large sum. Something did go

wrong this time, for, though he was running on strongly at the finish,

he was again unplaced.

"Dash it!" Clarehaven exclaimed, ruefully. "I hope this isn't going to

happen every time. You and her ladyship have made a mistake, I'm afraid,

Cobbett. If you ask me, he pecked."

Honest old William looked very grave.

"If you ask _me_, my lord, it was his jockey. The colt was badly ridden.

Still, it was a disappointment, there's no getting over it. But it's

early days to begin fretting, and he was running on. No doubt about

that. Tell you what, my lord, if you'll take my advice you'll give Joe

Flitten the mount for Ascot, and if Joe doesn't bring out what there is

in him, why then we'll have to put our heads together, that's all about

it."

So Joe Flitten, the Cobbett Lodge apprentice, rode Moonbeam in the New

Stakes, when the colt made most of his rivals at Epsom look like

platers; although it was to be noted that Sir James Otway's unnamed colt

by Desmond out of Diavola, which had won the Woodcote Stakes, did not

run.

"Like common ordinary platers," honest old William avowed.

After this performance the racing-press began to pay attention to

Moonbeam, and when in July he won the Hurst Park Foal Plate with

ridiculous ease they admitted that his victory at Ascot was no fluke.

In August Tony rented a grouse-moor in Yorkshire. His other horses were

not doing too well, but he was feeling prosperous, for Moonbeam had

already repaid him several times over his losses at Epsom; and at the

end of the month a jolly party drove over to York in a four-in-hand to

see the colt canter away with the Gimcrack Stakes. At this meeting

Dorothy really felt that Tony was what in another sense the press would

have called "an ornament to the turf." There were no Mrs. Mainwarings

and Captain Keiths with them at York, and she never felt less like a

Vanity girl than when she heard the crowd cheering Moonbeam's

victory--he was by now a popular horse--and looked round proudly at her

party; at Uncle Chat with Paignton and Charlie Fanhope; at Bella and

Connie, both bright red with joy; at Arthur and Sylvia Lonsdale, and at

Miss Horatia Lonsdale, a delightful aunt who was helping Dorothy

chaperon the girls, an easy enough task as regards Bella and Connie and

not very difficult as regards her niece.

Finally in the autumn Moonbeam won the Middle Park Plate and was voted

the finest two-year-old seen at Newmarket for several seasons.

"And now let him keep quiet till the Guineas," said William Cobbett,

with a sigh of satisfaction.

"You wouldn't run him in the Dewhurst?"

"No, no, let him rest with what he's done."

"Cobbett is right," said Lord Stilton, one of the stewards of the Jockey

Club, who came into the paddock at that moment. "You've got the Derby

next year, Clarehaven, if you don't overwork him. That apprentice of

yours is a treasure, Cobbett."

"A good boy, my lord."

"You don't know my wife," Tony was saying.

"My congratulations, Lady Clarehaven. I hear you picked out with my old

friend William here."

Later on Dorothy was presented to Lady Stilton. She in turn presented

her daughter, the beautiful and charming Lady Anne Varley, whose

engagement to the young Duke of Ulster had just been announced.

"My dear Dorothy," said Harry Tufton that evening, "you must admit that

my advice was good. How much better this sort of thing becomes you than

..." He waved his arms in a gesture of despair at finding any adjective

sufficiently contemptuous for those evenings at Curzon Street before his

lifelong friend, Tony Clarehaven, had followed his advice and sported

the black, white, and purple colors so famous forty years ago.

The prospect of winning the Derby next year really did seem to have

completed Tony's cure. He raised no objections when Dorothy insisted

that his mother and his sisters should spend the autumn in town, and he

actually went three times to the House of Lords to vote against some

urgent measure of reform. He did not make a speech, but he coughed once

in the middle of an oration by a newly created Radical peer, so

significant and so nearly vocally expressive a cough that it deserved to

be recorded in Hansard as a contribution to the debate.

Dorothy had been desirous of the dowager's help to consolidate a

position in London society that now for the first time appeared tenable.

Her meeting with Lady Stilton had given her a foothold on the really

high cliffs, and if Tony did not spoil everything she saw no reason why

she should not repeat on a larger scale in town her success in

Devonshire. It was a pity that Bella and Connie were so ugly; if she

could bring off brilliant matches for them, what a help that would be.

Of course, it was not the season; most people were out of town

notwithstanding that Parliament was sitting; but still surely somewhere

in the crowded pages of Debrett could be found suitors for the hands of

her sisters-in-law. The nearest approach to a match was when Lord

Beccles, the lunatic heir of the Marquis of Norwich, became perfectly

manageable if he was allowed to drive with Bella in Hyde Park,

chaperoned by his nurse and watched by a footman who held a certificate

from one of the largest private asylums in England. If Lord Beccles was

a congenital idiot, there were three other sons of Lord Norwich who were

sane enough, the eldest of whom, Lord Alistair Gay, agreed with Dorothy

that, if Lady Arabella was willing, the marriage would be a kindness to

his poor brother. Bella would not take the proposal seriously, and it

was evident that she regarded her drives with the poor idiot in the

light of a minor charity ranking with the care of a distempered dog or

of a cottager's baby.

"You surely aren't serious, Dorothy," she laughed.

"Well, it would give you a splendid position. You would be a countess

now and probably a marchioness very soon. Lady Norwich is dead. Lord

Norwich is very old, and idiots often live a long time. I'm not

suggesting that it would be anything more than a formal marriage, but

you apparently don't mind his dribbling with excitement when he sees the

Albert Memorial and.... However, I wouldn't persuade you into a match

for anything. Only it doesn't seem to me that it would imply anything

more than you do for him at present."

The dowager told Dorothy that she would rather dear Bella married

somebody simpler than poor Lord Beccles, to which Dorothy retorted that

it might be difficult to find even a commoner more simple. Moonbeam's

victories as a two-year-old had restored that self-confidence which had

been so shaken since her marriage; Dorothy, like most nations and most

human beings, was more admirable in adversity than in triumph. The

disposition she had shown to recognize her suburban family did not last;

she knew that the integument with which she was so carefully wrapping up

her reality could be stripped from it by her relations in a second. Only

now, after she had been a countess for six years, had Dorothy

discovered the narrow bridge that is swung over the center of the

universe--the well-laid and lighted bridge so delicately adjusted to

eternity that the least divergence from correctness by one of its

frequenters might be enough to imperil its balance. That bridge Dorothy

was now crossing with all her eyes for her feet, as it were, and she

certainly could not afford to be distracted by a family. If Sylvia

Scarlett had been in London to watch this new progress she would have

made many unkind jokes about the countess; but Sylvia was away acting in

America, and in any case she would have found the door of 129 Curzon

Street closed against her.

The dowager worried over the way Dorothy was ignoring her mother, and,

fortified with strong smelling-salts, she braved the Underground to pay

a visit to West Kensington, an experience she so thoroughly enjoyed that

she could not keep it a secret for long, but one day began to praise the

beauty of Edna and Agnes.

"Frankly, my dear Dorothy," she told her daughter-in-law, "I must say I

think that you would be likely to have much more success as a

match-maker for your sisters than for dear Bella and dear Connie, who

even in London seem unable to avoid that appearance of having just run

up and down a very windy hill. Why not have Edna and Agnes to live with

you until they're married? And when they are married invite the youngest

two, who will also be very beautiful girls, I'm convinced. Really, I

never saw such complexions as you and all your sisters have."

Dorothy thought the dowager's suggestion most impracticable.

"Yes, but my most impracticable suggestions nearly always turn out

well."

Perhaps, so sure was she of the impression that Agnes and Edna would

create in a London ballroom, the dowager would have had her way if she

had remained in town for the spring, but in the month of February,

anticipating St. Valentine's Day by a week, the Rev. Thomas Hemming

wrote from Cherrington to say that Mrs. Paxton, his godmother, had just

offered him the living of Newton Candover in Hampshire and would Lady

Constantia Clare become Lady Constantia Hemming? Lady Constantia would.

The trousseau was bought under the eyes of Dorothy, who, regardless of

the fact that she was going to marry a parson, insisted that Connie

should look beyond viyella for certain items. Soon after Easter Mr.

Beadon had to find another curate and Connie's room at Clare Lodge was

empty.

Tony was too much occupied with Moonbeam's chances of winning the two

thousand guineas at the end of April to bother who married his sister;

but he wrote her a generous check that compensated for the decline in

value of the vicar's glebe at Newton Candover.

"And I suppose," said Dorothy, "that next January Connie will have a

son."

"Never mind," said her husband. "Next June you and I shall have the

Derby winner."

Honest William Cobbett had made no secret of his conviction that

Moonbeam was going to canter away with the Guineas, and in the ring his

patron's horse was favorite at five to two.

"It'll have to be something very hot and dark that can beat him," he

told Clarehaven. "Has your lordship betted very plentiful?"

"I shall drop about ten thousand if the colt fails," said Clarehaven,

airily. "But most of my big bets are for the Derby. I got sixes against

him twice over to two thousand and fives twelve times in thousands. If

he wins to-day I shall plunge a bit."

The trainer blinked his limpid blue eyes.

"Oh, then you don't consider you've done anything in the way of plunging

so far?"

"Nothing," said Clarehaven, flicking his mount and calling to Dorothy

to ride along with him to the Birdcage. They had taken a small house for

the meeting, and they were just off to escort Moonbeam to the

starting-post. Lonsdale and Tufton had also come down to Newmarket, the

former mounted under protest on a hack which he rode as if he were

driving a car.

"Well, so long, Cobbett," the owner cried. "Hope we shall all be feeling

as happy in another half-hour as we are now."

"Never fear, my lord. As I told you, there's only the Diavola colt to be

afraid of. There's not a bit of doubt he won the Dewhurst in rare

fashion, and of course that made his win at Epsom in the Woodcote look

good. And now Sir James has gone and sold him for seven thousand guineas

with a contingency to this man Houston--somebody new to racing. Well,

seven thousand guineas is a nice little price, and there's been a lot of

money forthcoming from the Winsley crowd. Dick Starkey always tries to

serve up something extra hot for Newmarket. There's nothing gives

greater delight to a provincial stable like Starkey Lodge than to do us

headquarter folk out of the Guineas, which, as you may say, is our

specialty. Stupid name, though, to give such a nice-looking animal.

Chimpanzee!"

Dorothy uttered an exclamation. She divined the owner's name at once,

and when Lonsdale told her it was Leopold Hausberg who had been away in

South Africa and returned more rich than ever with a license to call

himself Lionel Houston in future, she was not at all surprised, but her

heart began to beat faster.

"Come along, come along, you two. We sha'n't be in time to escort the

horses from the Birdcage."

"I say, Tony," said Lonsdale, anxiously, "the bookies are shouting

twenty to one bar two, and Moonbeam has gone out to eleven to four."

"Damn!" ejaculated his owner. "I wonder if there's time for me to get

any more money on?"

"No, leave it alone," Lonsdale begged. "Good Heavens! It makes me feel

absolutely sick when I think of having ten thousand pounds on the result

of one race. Why, compared with that, flying is safer than walking."

Two Cambridge undergraduates riding by jostled his cob so roughly that

for the next few moments his attention was bent on maintaining himself

in the saddle.

"Flying would certainly be safer than riding for you," Clarehaven

laughed.

"The horse's mechanism is primitive, that's what it is--it's primitive,"

said Lonsdale. "And to risk ten thousand pounds on a primitive mechanism

like a horse--Shut up, you brute, _you're_ not entered for the Guineas.

I say, this steering-gear is very unreliable, you know."

Dorothy had wanted to ask Lonsdale more about the owner of Chimpanzee;

but at this moment the sun burst forth from behind a great white April

cloud full-rigged, the shadow of which floated over the glittering green

of the Heath just as the horses emerged from the Birdcage, escorted on

either side by horsemen and horsewomen of fame and beauty. It was a fair

scene, to play a part in which Dorothy exultantly felt that it was worth

while to lose even more than L10,000. The coats of the horses shimmered

in the sunlight; the colors of the jockeys blended and shifted like

flowers in the wind; no tournament of the Middle Ages with all its

plumes and pennons could have offered a fairer scene.

Tufton joined his friends, and, turning their mounts, they rode back

toward the winning-post.

"I say, Tony, Chimpanzee has shunted to three's--only a fraction's

difference now between him and Moonbeam," he was murmuring.

"Tell me more about Houston," said Dorothy to Lonsdale. "I don't think I

can bear to watch the race."

"Cheer-oh, Doodles! You can't feel more queasy than I do. And I've told

you all I know about Houston."

"But why should he call his horse Chimpanzee?"

There was a roar from the crowd.

"They're off!"

They were off on that royal mile of Newmarket.

"Flitten was told to ride him out from the start. Damn him, why doesn't

he do so?" said Tony.

"He is, old boy. He's all right. Don't get nervy," said Tufton.

"Which is Chimpanzee?"

"That bay on the outside."

"What colors?"

"Yellow. Harcourt up."

"Take him along! Take him along! Good God, he's not using the whip

already, is he?"

"No, no! No, no!"

"Damnation!" cried Tony, "why didn't we keep to the inclosure? I believe

my horse is beaten. Don't look round, you little blighter! It's not an

egg-and-spoon race."

The spectators were roaring like the sea.

"Moonbeam! Chimpanzee! Moonbeam! Moonbeam!" was shouted in a crescendo

of excitement.

There was a momentary lull.

"Moonbeam by a head," floated in a kind of unisonant sigh along the

rails.

"O Lord!" Lonsdale gulped. "I'd sooner drive a six-cylinder Lee-Lonsdale

at sixty miles an hour through a school treat."

The strain was over; the noble owner had led in the noble winner; the

ceremonies of congratulation were done; there was a profitable

settlement to expect on Monday; yet Dorothy was ill at ease. The

resuscitation of Hausberg clouded her contentment. Coincidence would not

explain his purchase of the Diavola colt, his naming of it Chimpanzee,

and his running it to beat Moonbeam. To be sure, he had failed, but a

man who had taken so much trouble to create an effect would be more

eager than ever after such a failure to ... "to do what?" she asked

herself. Was he aiming at revenge? Such a fancy was melodramatic, absurd

... after all these years deliberately to aim at revenge for a practical

joke. Besides, she had had nothing to do with the affair in St. John's

Wood. Nor had Tony except as an accessory after the fact. Yet it was

strange; it was even sinister. And how odd that Lonsdale should be

present at this sinister resurrection.

"Lonnie," she said, "do you remember about the monkey?"

"What monkey? Did you have a monkey on Moonbeam?"

"Not money, you silly boy--the chimpanzee you put in Hausberg's rooms."

"Of course I remember it. So does he, apparently, as he's called his

horse after it."

"I know. I feel nervous. I think he's going to bring us bad luck."

"Hello, Doodles, you're looking very gloomy for the wife of the man who

is going to win the Derby," said Tony, coming up at that moment, all

smiles. "I've just bet fifty pounds for you on one of Cobbett's fillies,

which he says is a good thing for the Wilbraham. And the stable's in

luck."

Dorothy won L250 in a flash, it seemed--the race was only four

furlongs--and when in the last race of the day she backed the winner of

the Bretby Handicap and won another L250 Tony told her cheerfully that

she ought not to gamble because she was now a monkey to the good.

Dorothy was depressed. The L500, outside the ill omen of its being

called a monkey in slang, assumed a larger and more portentous

significance by reminding her of the L500 she had borrowed from her

mother when she first went on the stage and of the way she had invested

some of it afterward with Leopold Hausberg. All her delight in

Moonbeam's victory had been destroyed by a dread of the unknown, and she

suddenly pulled Tony's sleeve, who was busily engaged in taking bets

against his horse for the Derby. He turned round rather irritably.

"What is the matter with you?"

"Give it up," she begged. "Don't bet any more."

"Give up betting when I've just won twenty-five thousand pounds over the

Guineas and am going to win one hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds

over the Derby? Besides, I thought you were going to live happily ever

afterward if Moonbeam won?"

He turned away again with a laugh, and Tufton's grave head-shake was not

much consolation to Dorothy. She was walking away a few paces in order

not to overhear Tony's jovial badinage with the bookmakers, when a suave

voice addressed her over the shoulder and, looking round, she saw

Leopold Hausberg.

"You've forgotten me, Lady Clarehaven," he was saying. "I must explain

that I--"

"Yes, yes," Dorothy interrupted, quickly, "you're Mr. Houston. I've just

been told so by Mr. Lonsdale, whom no doubt you also remember."

She mentioned Lonsdale's name deliberately to see if Houston would speak

about the monkey or even show a hint of displeasure at the mention of

Lonsdale's name, but there was no shadow on his countenance, and he only

asked her if she would not introduce him to her husband.

"I should like to congratulate him," he said, "though his win hit me

pretty hard."

At this moment Tony with a laugh closed his betting-book and joined

them.

"By Jove! there's not a sportsman among you," he called back to the

bookmakers. "What do you think, Doodles? There's not one of them who'll

give me four thousand to a thousand against Moonbeam for the Derby....

I'm sorry, I didn't see you were talking to somebody."

Dorothy made the introduction.

"I'll give you four thousand to a thousand, Lord Clarehaven," the

new-comer offered. "Or more if you wish to bet. I don't think my horse

showed his true form to-day. He swerved badly at the start, and my

jockey says he was kicked."

Clarehaven was delighted to find somebody who would lay against

Moonbeam, and he entered in his book a bet of L20,000 to L5,000.

"I had the pleasure of meeting Lady Clarehaven before her marriage,"

Houston was explaining. "I should have called upon you long ago, but

I've been away for some years in South Africa."

"Making money, eh?" said Tony, holding in his mouth like a cigarette the

pencil that was going to make money for him.

"I've not done so badly," said the other, deprecatingly.

"Look here, you must dine with us to-night," Tony declared, cheerily.

"We're having a little celebration at the Blue Boar."

"Delighted, I'm sure. That's what I always like about racing," said

Houston, "it brings out all our best sporting qualities as a nation."

Dorothy thought her husband was going to say something rude, but she

need not have been worried. He had no intention of being rude to a man

who would lay so heavily against the horse he thought was bound to win.

In fact, he went out of his way to be specially friendly to Houston, and

during the month of May the financier was at Curzon Street almost every

day. Moreover, he brought with him others like himself who were willing

to bet heavily with Clarehaven, and Dorothy began to think that even

Captain Keith and Mrs. Mainwaring and those Saturday afternoons of

peroxide and pink powder at Windsor or Lingfield Park were better than

this nightmare of hooked noses and splay mouths.

"Well," said Lonsdale, "if anybody ever talks to me again about the

'lost' tribes or the missing link, I shall ask him if he's looked in

Curzon Street. He'll find both there."

"Tony's being a little bit promiscuous," said Henry Tufton. "But of

course one _must_ remember that the king was very fond of Jews. And then

there was Disraeli, don't you know, and the late queen."

Just before the Derby, Houston, whom, in spite of the menace he seemed

to hold out against the future of Tony's career on the turf, Dorothy

could not help liking in the intervals when she forgot about her

premonitions of misfortune, said to her in a tone that it would have

been hard to accuse of insincerity:

"Look here, I want to show you I'm a true friend, and I warn you that my

horse is going to win the Derby. Nothing can beat him. Tell Clarehaven

to hedge. I wish I'd not laid that bet now, for I hate taking his money.

I suppose he'd be insulted if I offered to cancel the bet? But I would,

if he would."

Dorothy told Tony about Houston's offer; but he laughed at her and said

that, like all Jews, Houston did not relish losing his money.

Nevertheless, finding that his liabilities were alarmingly high and

knowing that Houston, not content with laying against Moonbeam, was

backing Chimpanzee wherever he could, Tony invested some money on the

second favorite and declined to lay another halfpenny against him. As a

matter of fact, the money he invested thus was in comparison with the

thousands for which he had backed Moonbeam a trifle; but rumor

exaggerated the sum, and when Chimpanzee won the Derby, with Moonbeam

just shut out of a place, there were unpleasant rumors in the clubs.

Dorothy did not go to Epsom--her nerves could not have stood the

strain--and when she heard of Moonbeam's defeat she was grateful to her

impulse. Nowadays her self-confidence was very easily upset, and from

the moment Houston had appeared upon the scene at Newmarket she had

never in her heart expected that Moonbeam would win the great race.

It was Tony himself who brought her the bad news. In a gray tail-coat

and with gray top-hat set askew upon his flushed face--flushed with

more than temper and disappointment, she thought--he strode up and down

the smoking-room at Curzon Street, swinging his field-glasses round and

round by their straps, until she begged him not to break the chandelier.

"Break the chandelier," he laughed. "That's good, by Jove! What about

breaking myself? You don't seem to understand what this means, my dear

Doodles. I've lost sixty thousand pounds over that cursed animal. Sixty

thousand pounds! Do you hear? And I've got four days to find the money.

Do you realize I shall have to mortgage Clare in order to settle up on

Monday?"

"Mortgage Clare?" Dorothy gasped; she turned white and swayed against

the table. At that moment Tony let the straps escape from his hand and

the glasses went crashing into a large mirror.

"Yes, mortgage Clare," he repeated, savagely.

It was only the noise of the broken glass that kept her from fainting;

weakly she pointed at the mirror and with a wavering smile upon her

usually firm lips she whispered something about seven years of bad luck.

"Well, it's nothing to laugh about," said Tony.

"I wasn't laughing. Oh, Tony, you can't lose Clare; you mustn't."

"Oh well, I mayn't lose it. I may have some luck late in the season. But

my other horses have let me down badly so far."

"You won't go on betting?"

"How else am I to get back what I've lost? I can't make sixty thousand

pounds by selling papers!"

"Oh, but you...." She put her hand up to her forehead and sank into one

of those comfortable chairs upholstered in red leather. "How did Cobbett

explain Moonbeam's defeat?" She felt that, however agonizing, she must

have the tale of the race to give her an illusion of action, and to

silence these bells that were ringing in her brain: "Clare! Clare!

Clare!"

"Cobbett?" exclaimed Tony, viciously. "He's about fit to train a

bus-horse to jog from Piccadilly to Sloane Street. 'The colt doesn't

like the Epsom course, and that's about the size of it,' said Mr.

Cobbett to me. 'Course be damned, you old plowboy!' I told him. 'If you

hadn't insisted upon giving the mount to that cursed apprentice of yours

my horse would have won.' 'I don't think it was the lad's fault, my

lord,' said Cobbett, getting as red as a turkey-cock. 'Don't you dare to

contradict me,' I said. By God! Doodles, I was in such a rage that it

was all I could do not to take the obstinate old fool by the shoulders

and shake the truth into him. 'I'd contradict the King of England, my

lord, if I trained his horses and he told me I didn't know my business,'

'Well, I tell you that you don't know your business,' I answered. 'Why

didn't you let me do as I wanted and get O'Hara over from France to ride

him?' 'If you remember, my lord, in the Woodcote Stakes, we gave the

mount to Harcourt, and he made a mess of the race.' I couldn't stand

there shouting 'O'Hara! Not Harcourt!' It wouldn't have been dignified

in the paddock, and so I just told him quietly that I should have to

consider if after to-day's fiasco I could still intrust my horses to a

man who wouldn't listen to reason; after that I pulled myself together

with a couple of stiff brandies and drove the car home myself. By the

way, I ran over a kid in Hammersmith and broke its leg or something.

Altogether it's been my worst day from birth up."

Dorothy would have liked to reproach him for drinking, to have expressed

her dismay at the accident to the child, to have whispered a word of

hope for the future, to have taken his foolish flushed face between her

hands and kissed it ... but the only speech and action she could trust

herself to make or take was to ring for a footman to sweep up the broken

glass from the floor of the smoking-room.

Two days later, while Tony was hard at work raising the money to pay

his debts on Monday, a letter came from Newmarket:

COBBETT HOUSE, NEWMARKET,

_June 7, 1912._

_To the Earl of Clarehaven._

MY LORD,--After our conversation in the paddock at Epsom on

Wednesday I must give your lordship notice that I must respectfully

decline to train your horses any longer in my stables. I would be

much obliged if your lordship will give instructions to who I must

transfer them.

I am,

Yours respectfully,

W. COBBETT.

Houston, who happened to be with Tony when this letter arrived, asked

him why he did not train with Richard Starkey at Winsley on the

Berkshire Downs.

"Yes, that's all very well," said Clarehaven, "but what about the

Leger?"

"I'm not going to run Chimpanzee for the Leger. In fact, I've sold him

to an Australian syndicate for the stud. Your horse will be the only

representative of the stable."

Finally Clarehaven's horses were transferred to Starkey Lodge, and

Moonbeam, as the obvious choice of the stable, gave the public a good

win at Doncaster. The victory did not do Clarehaven much good in

narrower circles, where many people had backed Chimpanzee to win the

Leger. The rumors that had gone round the clubs after the Derby sprang

to life again, and with an added virulence circulated freely. Lord

Stilton, as a friend of his father, warned Tony in confidence that he

would not be elected to the Jockey Club and advised him to go slow for a

while.

"If the Stewards wish for an explanation," said Tony, loftily, "they can

have an explanation."

"It is not a question of your horse's running," said Lord Stilton.

"Technically there are no grounds for criticism. But a certain amount of

comment has been aroused by your change of stables and by your

friendship with this man Houston. Altogether, my dear fellow, I advise

you to go slow--yes, to go slow."

Tony, with the amount of money he had won back by Moonbeam's victory in

the Leger, did not feel at all inclined to go slow, and with Richard

Starkey at his elbow he bought several highly priced yearlings at the

Doncaster sales. He would show that pompous old bore Stilton that the

Derby could be won without being a member of the Jockey Club.

IV