Moonbeam's victory in the St. Leger had apparently freed Clare from

mortgages, and it enabled the owner to meet a large number of bills that

fell due shortly afterward. Dorothy, who was continually hearing from

Tony how decently Houston was behaving to him, began to wonder if her

dread of the Jew had not been hysterical; and when in October he

proposed a cruise round the Mediterranean in his new yacht she did not

attribute to the proposal a new and subtle form of danger. She and

Houston were talking together in the drawing-room at Curzon Street while

Tony was occupied with somebody who had called on business. During the

summer these colloquies down in the smoking-room had kept Dorothy's

nerves strung up to expect the worst when she used to hear Tony

accompany the visitor to the door and come so slowly up-stairs after he

was gone. But since Doncaster the interviews had been much shorter, and

Tony had often run up-stairs at the end of them, leaving the visitor to

be shown out by a footman. Throughout that trying time Houston had been

always at hand, suave and attentive, not in the least attentive beyond

the limits of an old friendship, but rather in the manner of Tufton,

though of course with greater age and experience at the back of it. His

ugliness, which, when Dorothy had first beheld it again so abruptly

that afternoon in the ring at Newmarket had appalled her, was by now so

familiar again that she was no longer conscious of it, or if she was

conscious of it she rather liked it. Such ugliness strengthened

Houston's background, and when Tony's affairs seemed most desperate gave

Dorothy a hope; the more rugged the cliff the more easily will the

wrecked mariner scale its forbidding face. Yes, Houston had really been

invaluable during an exhausting year, and when now he proposed this

yachting trip she welcomed the project.

"I think it would be good for Clarehaven to get him away from England

for a while--to give him a change of air and scene. We'll lure him with

the promise of a few days at Monte Carlo, and something will happen to

make it impossible to go near Monte Carlo, eh? A nice, quiet little

party. I have cabins for eight guests. Three hundred ton gross. Nothing

extravagant as a yacht goes."

"And what do you call her? _The Chimpanzee?_" asked Dorothy, with a

smile.

"No, no, no," he replied. "_The Whirligig._ A good name for a small

yacht, don't you think?"

"Tell me," said Dorothy, earnestly. "Why did you call your horse

Chimpanzee? You know, when I first heard it, I felt you were still

brooding over that stupid business in those flats. What were they

called?"

"Lauriston Mansions."

"Ah, you haven't forgotten the name. I had. But what centuries ago all

that seems."

"Does it?"

"To me, oh, centuries!" she exclaimed, vehemently.

Houston's eyes narrowed, as if he were seeking to bring that far-off

scene into focus with the present.

"I oughtn't to have reminded you of it," said Dorothy, lightly. "It was

tactless of me."

"Not at all," said Houston. "Besides, contemporary with that there are

many pleasant hours to remember" ... he hesitated for a second and blew

out the end of the sentence in a puff of cigarette smoke ... "with you."

"Yes, I have often wondered why you were so kind to me. I think I must

have been very tiresome in those days."

"On the contrary, you were the loveliest girl in London."

"Girl," Dorothy half sighed.

"Come, my dear Lady Clarehaven." Was he mocking her with the title? "My

dear Lady Clarehaven," he repeated, with the least trace of emphasis

upon the conventional epithet. "You don't expect me to be so bold as to

say what you are now?"

For one moment he opened wide his dark eyes, and in that moment Dorothy

decided that the party on the yacht should include the dowager and

Bella. Simultaneously with this decision she was saying, with a laugh of

affected dismay, "Oh no, please, Mr. Houston."

Tony was not at first in favor of the proposed trip, and pleaded that he

wanted to see how his yearlings wintered; but Houston insisted that

Starkey would look after them better without being worried by the owner.

Then Tony urged the claims of pheasants. He had neglected his pheasants

of late, and it would be a pity to let the Clare coverts alone for

another year.

"Besides, I ought to look after the property," he added.

Dorothy had heard this declaration of duty urged too often to be taken

in by it any longer. A week in Devonshire would cure Tony of a

landowner's anxiety whether about his pheasants or his peasants; after

that he would discover in his bland way that London was more convenient

than the country.

"You can get plenty of shooting in the Mediterranean," said Houston.

"There's a desert island in the AEgean with mouflon that nobody ever

succeeds in getting."

"What? I'll bet you two hundred to one in sovereigns that I bag a

couple," Tony cried.

"I won't bet, because you'll lose your money. A friend of mine lay off

for a week of fine weather--that's a rare occurrence in those

waters--lost nearly a stone climbing the rocks, and at the end of it

came away without hitting one."

"Ridiculous," Tony scoffed. "What gun did he use?"

"Don't ask me," laughed Houston. "All I know is he was a first-class

shot, and if he couldn't succeed I don't believe anybody can."

"That's rot," Tony declared, angrily. "When are we going to start?"

"She's in commission and now lying at Plymouth, which will save your

mother a long journey by train."

"My mother?" Tony echoed, in astonishment.

Dorothy revealed her plan for inviting the dowager and Bella, and Tony

was so anxious to prove he was right about the mouflon that he made no

objections.

"Then," Dorothy continued, "I thought Harry Tufton had better be asked.

He'll be so good at buying souvenirs in port. Your mother is sure to

want souvenirs, and you'd hate to scour round for them yourself."

"I suppose Lonnie couldn't come," Tony suggested.

Houston knitted his brows, but said hurriedly that Lonsdale would be an

ideal passenger for a cruise. Dorothy did not like to oppose the

suggestion; yet she was relieved when Lonsdale replied that, having

luckily arrived on this earth many years after the Flood, he did not

propose to slight dry land. "Sea-trips," he wrote, "beginning with the

Ark's have always been crowded and unpleasant. Besides, I'm learning to

fly."

"Silly ass!" said Tony, tearing up the note.

The dowager was rather fluttered by the notion of a cruise in a yacht.

Her knowledge of the sea was chiefly derived from Lady Brassey's journal

of a voyage in the _Sunbeam_, the continual references of which to

seasickness were not encouraging. Bella, who since Connie's marriage had

taken to writing short stories, was as eager for local color as a child

for a box of paints, and her enthusiasm at the idea of visiting the

classic sea was so loudly expressed that the dowager had not the heart

to disappoint her. She did, however, make one stipulation that surprised

her daughter-in-law.

"If I go," she said, "you must promise me to invite one of your sisters.

Now please, Dorothy, listen to me. You owe it to them. Of course, I

should like you to invite them all and your mother, who could talk to me

while you were all climbing volcanoes and searching for the ruins of

Carthage; but I dare say Mr. Houston won't have room. However, one of

them you must invite."

And then suddenly the dowager's suggestion seemed to provide a perfect

solution of a problem that had been vexing Dorothy. In thinking over

Houston's attitude she had been forced to explain it by the existence of

something like a tender feeling for herself. To speak of tenderness in

connection with him seemed absurd; but she was beginning to fancy that

perhaps in the old days he had in his heart all the time wanted her for

himself. If that were so, he had certainly behaved very well both now

and then. No doubt he had realized that so long as her marriage with

Clarehaven was attainable he stood no chance; but if that should have

definitely come to nothing, he must have intended to ask her to marry

him. It was with that idea he had helped her with investments, had

avoided the least hint of an ulterior motive, and had always treated her

so irreproachably. If he had concealed his love so carefully in the

past, it was not ridiculous to suppose that he might be in love with her

now. The other day he had been on the verge of saying something much

more intimate than anything in the most intimate conversation they had

ever had together. Perhaps he fancied that she and Tony were nothing to

each other now--alas! with gambling as his ruling passion Tony might

have given Houston some reason to suppose that she no longer stood where

she used to stand in his eyes--or perhaps with a real chivalry he had

perceived the dangerous course that Tony was taking and wished to save

her without obtruding himself too much. Poor ugly man, with all his

wealth he was a pathetic figure. He would suffer when he saw how devoted

she was to Tony; she had made up her mind to charm Tony back to his old

adoration of herself; this cruise might be her last opportunity.

Then why not ask one of her sisters? Such a sister, reflecting if

somewhat faintly her own glories, might console Houston for an eternal

impossibility. In that case she must invite the eldest now at home, and

with her roses and rich brown hair might serve as a substitute for

herself.

"Of course she hasn't my personality," Dorothy admitted. "And she hasn't

my brown eyes. But she is beautiful, and what an excellent thing it

would be if Houston should marry her. Jews have such a sense of family

duty."

With the inclusion of Agnes the party was complete, and in the middle of

November _The Whirligig_ left Plymouth for the Mediterranean. Tony's

astonishment at the production of this beautiful sister-in-law was

laughable; but if heavy weather in the Bay of Biscay had not blanched

most of her roses, while Dorothy's own throve in the fierce Atlantic

airs, that astonishment might have turned to something less laughable.

Houston, indeed, did ask Dorothy once in an undertone if it was not

rather imprudent of her deliberately to create a rival for herself; but

by the time the yacht had rounded Cape St. Vincent and was lying at ease

in the harbor of Cadiz Tony was nearly as much his wife's slave as he

was in the first days of their marriage. Dorothy, who had felt a

momentary qualm about the success of her project when she saw the effect

of Agnes's fair form of England against this passionate beauty of the

south, decided that, on the contrary, it would be this very effect that

would impress Houston much more than Tony. So far as mortal women are

concerned, she had never had to bother much about Tony except when she

herself had been cold with him. The fickle goddess of fortune was her

only rival; but on board _The Whirligig_ he seemed out of reach of

temptation by her. Yes, the party was well chosen. Tufton by this time

had recovered sufficiently from the heavy seas to help the dowager

obtain her souvenirs of the various ports at which they called, and she

at last forgave him for his advice about the pergola; Bella, inspired by

a visit to Fielding's tomb at Lisbon, which was the first assurance she

had received that England even existed since the Lizard Light had

dropped below the horizon, was much occupied with a diary of her

impressions; Tony was occupied by herself; and what should Houston do

except occupy himself with Agnes? At the same time Dorothy had her

doubts. Whenever she was sitting quietly with Tony in some snug windless

corner of the yacht their host would always find an excuse to intervene.

After Cadiz they called at Malaga, Cartagena, and Alicante, whence by

Valencia and Barcelona they were to sail by the shores of France toward

the lights of Monte Carlo, which Houston now wanted to visit, although

in London he had said that nothing should induce him to take the yacht

there. Tony unexpectedly argued against a visit to Monte Carlo, and was

only eager to attack the mouflon on that inaccessible AEgean isle. So the

yacht's course was set eastward from Alicante.

"Why did you change your mind about Monte Carlo?" Dorothy asked Houston.

"Isn't it fairly obvious?"

She thought he was going to seize her hand and plunge headlong into a

declaration of passion; but he turned away quickly and called her

attention to the view. They were passing the southern shores of

Formentera, so close that upon the sandy beach flamingos preening their

wings in the sunset were plainly visible. The yacht called at Cagliari

and Palermo, visited the Ionian islands, and reached the AEgean by way

of the Corinth canal. The bet about the mouflon had to be canceled in

the end, because the sea was never sufficiently calm to allow a boat to

be lowered off Antaphros, and was still less likely to remain calm long

enough for a boat to leave the deserted island again. They made several

attempts to land, sailing there from their headquarters at Aphros, the

white houses of which, stained with the purple Bougainvillea and

mirrored in the calm waters of the harbor, seemed eternally to promise

fine weather. Luckily the island also offered sufficient entertainment

to compensate Tony for the loss of the mouflon; there was a club of

which many rich ship-owners were members, where high play at ecarte was

the rule, and Tony, with the good luck that often attends strangers,

repaid his hosts by winning from them nearly twenty thousand drachmas.

The war in the Balkans made it difficult for the yacht to visit

Constantinople, which was her original destination; and it was decided

to substitute Alexandria and allow the members of the party to spend a

few days in Cairo; from Egypt they would cruise along the coast of

Syria, turn westward again by Cyprus and Rhodes, and with luck land a

boat at Antaphros on the journey home, for Tony still regretted those

mouflon.

Agnes would probably have found her stay in Aphros romantic enough at

any time; but now with the supreme romance of war added and with

handsome young Aphriotes going north upon their country's business by

every steamer, she wished no higher ecstasy from this wonderful voyage.

Agnes had enjoyed a great success on the island, where she had taught

the young men and maidens to dance whatever ragtime was then the mode in

West Kensington; where with them, when the dancing was done, she had

climbed to the ruined temple of Aphrodite on the heights above the town

and sat beneath a waning semilune that emptied her silver upon the bare

and rounded hills, upon the sea, and upon a necklace of sapphire

islands, past which the troopship now winking in the harbor below would

sail at dawn. Like father, like son, even love shoots more arrows than

usual in time of war. Agnes did not think that Egypt or Palestine could

offer better than this, and when the parents of her new friends Antonia

and Ariadne Venieris invited her to stay with them in their ancient

house until the yacht came back, she begged her sister to make it easy

for her to accept this invitation. Dorothy saw no reason to refuse, and

they sailed away without her.

Three weeks later, when the yacht reached Rhodes, Dorothy found a letter

from Madame Venieris awaiting her arrival, in which she announced that

Agnes had married a young lieutenant called Sommaripa; she did not know

what Lady Clarehaven would think of her; she did not know how to make

her excuses; but at least she could assure Lady Clarehaven that the

bridegroom, who was now in Thrace, was an excellent young man, an orphan

with plenty of money and well regarded at court. Meanwhile, the bride

must be her guest until peace was signed and her husband was released

from service.

Agnes herself wrote as follows:

APHROS,

_January 19, 1913._

MY DEAR DOODLES,--I suppose you're awfully fed up with me; but he

is such a perfect darling and so frightfully good-looking. He owns

a lot of land and a castle in Aphros that belonged to the

Venetians. His ancestors were Dukes of Aphros. He's an orphan and

his name is--don't laugh--Phragkiskos (Francis!) Sommaripa. I

shouldn't have married in such a tearing hurry if he hadn't been

going to the front. I'm writing to mother and father, etc. I

suppose they'll have fits; but I really don't believe there is such

a place as Lonsdale Road any more. He told me I was another

Aphrodite risen from the foam. Aphros is Greek for foam. I dare say

it sounds rather exaggerated when written down, but when he said it

with his foreign accent I collapsed in his arms. Oh, my dear, don't

be cross when you come back with the yacht. Love to everybody on

board.

Your loving sister, AGNES SOMMARIPA.

The news of her sister's escapade--well, it was something more than an

escapade--affected Dorothy with a jealousy that she recognized for what

it was in time to prevent herself from betraying the emotion she felt;

so eager, indeed, was she to hide it that she proclaimed her approval of

what Agnes had done, and so emphatically that the dowager was much

agitated lest Bella should follow her example; but Bella did nothing

more alarming than to sit down forthwith in the saloon and begin a very

passionate and romantic story founded upon fact and drenched in local

color.

Meanwhile, the Italian governor of Rhodes was taking steps to assure

himself that _The Whirligig_ was not a Greek war-ship with evil designs

upon the Turkish population, which he was petting as a nurse pets a

child she has lately had the gratification of smacking. As soon as the

police spies guaranteed the harmlessness of the yacht the governor was

hospitable and invited the members of the party to shoot the red-legged

partridges and woodcock upon the Rhodian uplands. Tony, Bella, and

Tufton accepted the invitation; the dowager, fearful lest Bella should

envy the repose of some fascinating Turk's harem in the interior,

accompanied them in the motor-car as far as the road permitted, where

she alighted and passed the time in picking the red and purple anemones

that blew in myriads all around, until the sportsmen had killed enough

birds and were ready for lunch.

Houston suggested to Dorothy that they should take a walk round the town

while the others were away; she accepted, for she was anxious to shake

off this brooding jealousy which had oppressed her since the news in

Agnes's letter.

"I shouldn't worry myself about your sister," he was saying.

Dorothy frowned to think he should have read her thoughts so easily.

"I'm not worrying. I think she has done exactly right."

"Envying her, in fact," Houston added.

"Why should I envy her?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Don't we always rather envy the people who do things with such

decision? Don't we sometimes feel that we're wasting time?"

He said this so meaningly that Dorothy pretended not to hear what he had

said and looked up to admire the fortified gate of St. Catherine through

which they were passing.

"It's like Oxford!" she exclaimed.

Her jealousy of Agnes was stimulated by this comparison, for when they

came to the Street of the Knights she was reminded of that day when she

walked down the High with Sylvia, that Sunday afternoon which had been

the prelude of everything. How many years ago?

"O God!" she exclaimed, reverting in her manner, as she often used in

Houston's company, to that hard Vanity manner. "O God! I shall be

twenty-nine in March!"

"I'm over forty."

"But you're a man. What does your age matter?"

She was looking at him, and thinking while she spoke how ugly he was.

Perhaps he realized her thought, for his face darkened with that blush

of the very sallow complexion, that blush which seems more like a

bruise.

"You mean I'm too hideous?"

"Don't be silly. Let's explore this gateway."

They passed under a Gothic arch and found themselves in a cloistered

quadrangle, so much like a small Oxford college that only a tall palm

against the blue sky above the roofs told how far they were from Oxford.

"It's uncanny," said Dorothy. "How stupid Tony was to go off shooting

without first exploring the town. How stupid of him!"

Dorothy wanted her husband's presence as she had never wanted it; she

wanted to help the illusion that she was back in Oxford with all the

adventure of life before her. She wanted to see him here in this

familiar setting and revive ... what?

"I hope Agnes will be happy," she sighed.

Close by a couple of Jews in wasp-striped gabardines were arguing about

something in a mixture of Spanish and Yiddish; without thinking and

anxious only to get back to the present, Dorothy asked Houston if he

could understand what they were talking about. Again that dark blush

showed like a bruise.

"Why should I understand them?" he asked, savagely.

"No, of course. I really don't know," she stammered, in confusion, for

she was thinking how much better a gabardine would suit Houston than his

yachting-suit and how exactly his pendulous under lip resembled the

under lips of the two disputants. An odd fancy came into her mind that

she would rather like to be carried off by Houston, to be held in

captivity by him in the swarming ghetto through which they had picked

their way a few minutes ago, to sit peering mysteriously through the

lattice of some crazy balcony ... to surrender to some one strong and

Eastern and.... Oh, but this was absurd! The sun was hot in this

quadrangle; she was in an odd state; it must be that the news about

Agnes had upset her more than she had thought. At that moment her eyes

rested upon the broken headpiece of a tomb that was leaning against the

cloister, and she found herself reading in a dream: "Gilbert Clare of

Clarehaven. With God. 1501." The palm still swayed against the blue sky;

the Jews still chattered at one another. Dorothy looked round her with a

dazed expression, and then impulsively knelt down among the rubble that

surrounded the tombstone and read the words again: "Gilbert Clare of

Clarehaven. With God. 1501." The Italian curator of the museum that was

being formed in the old hospital drew near and explained to Dorothy in

French that this was the tombstone of an English knight.

"An ancestor of mine," Dorothy told him.

The curator smiled politely; being a Latin, he certainly did not believe

her.

"I've never seen you so much interested by anything," said Houston.

"I never have been so thrilled by anything," she declared. "Gilbert

Clare of Clarehaven! Clarehaven! And when he left it he must have often

thought of our little church on the headland; and when he died here, how

he must have longed to be at home."

"Does Clare mean very much to you?" Houston asked.

"_You_ could never imagine how much. For Clare I would do anything!"

"Anything? That's a rash statement."

"Anything," she repeated.

Houston tried to persuade the curator to let him have the tombstone for

Dorothy to take away with her; but the curator was shocked at such a

suggestion and explained that it was an unusual inscription--the

earliest of the kind in English that he knew; he should have expected

Latin at such a date.

The countess failed to rouse much enthusiasm in the earl about the tomb

of his ancestor, but the dowager was glad he was with God; Bella had a

subject for another story; and Tufton photographed it. The next day the

wind seemed likely to shift round into the north, and _The Whirligig_

left the exposed harbor, traveling past the mighty limestone cliffs of

the Dorian promontory, past Cos and many other islands, until once more

her anchor was dropped in the sheltered blue waters of Aphros.

There were interminable discussions at the house of Monsieur and Madame

Venieris; but there was no doubt whatever that Agnes was married.

"And do you know, my dear Doodles," her sister added, when they were

alone, "do you know I believe I'm already going to have a baby?"

Dorothy could stand no more; but when she begged that all speed should

be made for England there came a series of breathless days during which

Tony stalked the mouflon on the heights of Antaphros. In the end he

actually did hit one, and though it fell at the foot of a difficult

precipice he scrambled down somehow, raised the carcass with ropes, and

rowed triumphantly away with it to the yacht. Houston tossed him double

or quits for the sovereign he had won; Tony won five tosses in

succession and thirty-two pounds.

"My luck's in," he shouted, gleefully. "Come on, Houston, full speed

ahead. I want to see my horses again."

When the yacht reached Plymouth the whole party went ashore and traveled

up to Clare.

"Yes," Houston admitted to Dorothy, "I can understand the appeal this

sort of thing must have for anybody. It must be glorious here in summer.

I suppose the deer look after themselves? Yes, it's a wonderful old

place."

A week after their guests had left Tony and Dorothy followed them to

London.

"Oh, by the way, Doodles," said Tony at Paddington, "I ought to have

explained before, but I've got a little surprise for you. I had to sell

one hundred and twenty-nine. I was offered a nailing good price."

"And where are we going to live?" she asked.

"Well, that's the surprise. You'll never guess. I've taken your old flat

in Halfmoon Street."

Dorothy looked at Tony.

"You're not angry?" he asked.

"I think I'm past anger," she said, dully.

While they were driving to their new abode Dorothy decided that it would

be easy to convince her family that such a romantic marriage was the

right thing for Agnes, because her arguments would come from the depths

of her heart.

"And _I_ shall be twenty-nine in March," she kept thinking.

"Of course I kept all your favorite things," Tony was saying. "I sold

the rest. The pictures fetched a deuced poor price. I hope that if the

Clare pictures ever have to go I shall have more luck with them."

"I wonder you don't offer to sell me," said Dorothy, bitterly.

He squeezed her arm affectionately.

"Sha'n't have to do that just yet awhile. I'm going to have a lucky

year. I felt that when I pipped that mouflon. Ever since I broke the

glass at one hundred and twenty-nine I've been deuced uneasy. As soon as

the house was sold I began winning at ecarte, and then I pipped that

mouflon."

V

The sale of the house in Curzon Street revived all Dorothy's worst

fears. If Tony could successfully hide from her knowledge such a

transaction he was capable of announcing one day that Clare itself was

gone. Life had not offered much stability since that fatal June except

for the brief period when Tony's career upon the turf had accorded with

the traditions of his order and had seemed to possess the dignity that

confers itself automatically upon those who put forth their hands to

claim their due, her existence had been periodically shaken like a town

in the shadow of a volcano. Was not his marriage judged from the outside

a contribution to failure similar to the running of Moonbeam in the

Derby? Was she herself much more than a disappointing race-horse? She

had failed to keep her classic engagements at Clare; she had failed to

carry her weight in the big handicap at Curzon Street. Was the flat in

Halfmoon Street a selling-plate? Oh, this flat, how it was haunted with

the ghosts of old ambitions! The color schemes and patterns of the

chintz might be different, but how familiarly the bells rang, how

familiar was the sound of the doors opening and shutting, and the light

upon her dressing-table ... and the rumble of the traffic ... leading

whither?

"Tony, what _do_ you want?" she asked, passionately, one morning when

the sparrows were maddening her with their monotonous chirping praise of

the sunshine.

"I want to win the Derby," he said.

"And lose everything else, even me?" she asked.

"And lose nothing," he maintained, obstinately. "Starkey fears nothing."

Starkey feared nothing! Starkey with his long, thin nose and red hair!

By now two of Tony's yearlings stood out well above the rest. Of these a

bay colt by Cyllene out of Midsummer Night and, therefore, a

half-brother of Moonbeam, had run well in the Brocklesby Stakes at

Lincoln, still better in the Westminster Plate at the Epsom Spring

Meeting, and had cantered away with the Spring Two-year-old Stakes at

Newmarket. He was considered to be a certainty for the Woodcote Stakes;

but on Starkey's advice Tony ran instead a chestnut filly by Spearmint

out of Blushrose, who won with considerable ease, beating horses that

had shown up well in the previous races. Clarehaven was jubilant;

Starkey feared nothing; they had next year's Derby in their hands. It

had been just after this last victory that Tony had affirmed his only

ambition in life to be the Derby. At Ascot, still running unnamed, the

filly won the Coventry Stakes; half an hour afterward Moonbeam took the

Ascot Stakes by five lengths, and two days later, starting as an odds on

favorite, he won the Gold Cup without being extended; finally on the

same day the Midsummer Night colt won the New Stakes and was named Full

Moon, for certainly the fortunes of Clare seemed in their complement.

"There's never been such an Ascot," said Tony to his wife.

Houston had had to go to South Africa soon after he returned from the

Mediterranean cruise; while he was still away, Tony's luck touched its

zenith when Moonbeam won the Eclipse Stakes at Sandown Park.

"Though it's lucky Mr. Houston sold Chimpanzee to that Australian

syndicate," said Starkey. "Because I give you my word, my lord, that

Chimpanzee was a better horse than Moonbeam, just as the filly is better

than the colt."

"I think you're wrong about Moonbeam," Tony argued, "though you may be

right about the filly."

When Houston reached England in July he motored down to Winsley with the

Clarehavens to discuss future plans with the trainer, and when the old

argument about the respective merits of Chimpanzee and Moonbeam began,

as usual, he laughed, saying that for him the discussion was a barren

one, because after this Derby victory he did not intend to tempt fortune

any more.

"I wish you could persuade Tony to follow your example," said Dorothy.

"Don't be silly, old thing. I haven't won the Derby yet," Tony

proclaimed, in a hurt voice.

"Don't be afraid, my lord; you can't lose it next year, not if you

tried. Of course I'm not going to say yet for certain whether it'll be

with the colt or with the filly; but I think it'll be with the filly."

"Which reminds me," said Tony. "We haven't given the lady a name yet."

"Why not Vanity Girl?" Houston suggested.

"Of course," Tony shouted, gleefully. "Vanity Girl she is."

Dorothy protested that the name would bring bad luck and begged for

Mignonette instead.

"Mignonette won a race at Liverpool only yesterday," said the trainer.

"But there must be plenty of other names that haven't been used,"

Dorothy insisted. "As we've got the Full Moon of Clare, why shouldn't we

call the filly Supporting Angel?"

"Well," said Mr. Starkey, "with her ladyship's permission, I prefer

Vanity Girl. It sounds like a winner."

Tony and Houston were emphatically in favor of Vanity Girl, and the

filly was named accordingly. Dorothy stayed behind to contemplate the

beautiful creature in her box, the fair, shimmering creature lately

anonymous and now burdened with what was surely a title of ill omen.

"But you have no ambitions," said Dorothy. "If you fail you won't mind.

What do you care about your purple clothing with its black border and

its silver coronet?"

Dorothy left the dim, cool stable and emerged into the glare of the July

noon. She felt sad about the filly's name, and, unwilling to meet the

others until she had recovered from her depression, she walked away from

Starkey Lodge, walked up the sloping single street of the little village

of Winsley, the houses of which seemed to have drifted like leaves into

this cranny of the bare downs. At the top of the street the village

ended abruptly where a white road ran like a line of foam between a sea

of grass that stretched skyward to right and left until the horizon

faded into the summer haze.

"Thirty next March," said Dorothy, aloud. "And what have I done with my

life?"

She envied the thistledown that floated by, envied its busy air and

effect of traveling whither it would; compared with those winged seeds

the blue butterflies seemed as irresolute and timorous of the future as

herself ... herself.... A voice shouted that lunch was waiting, and

there was Tony waving to her from the road. Lunch was waiting for

herself; but for that thistledown what was waiting? Dorothy's clear-cut

personality was becoming blurred; she never used to speculate about

thistledown in cloud cuckoo land. Everybody noticed the change. Some had

heard that there really was something between Dorothy Clarehaven and

that fellow Houston; others knew for a positive fact that Tony

Clarehaven neglected his wife; and all the women decided that she must

be well over thirty by now.

Tony began to bet recklessly as soon as Houston returned, and by the

autumn he was again in difficulties. Moonbeam failed to give two stone

to a smart three-year-old in the Jockey Club Stakes, and he lost much

more than Full Moon had made for him by winning the Boscawen Stakes the

day before. But there had been no purchase at Tattersall's, no ambitious

yearlings from Doncaster, for Tony had given his word to Dorothy that

after next year's Derby he would retire from racing. In fact, to show

that this time he was in earnest he sold all his horses except the two

sons of Cyllene and Vanity Girl. The filly had just won a severe trial

and on Starkey's advice was preferred to Full Moon for the Middle Park

Plate. She was heavily backed, started a hot favorite, and was not

placed. Tony declined to accept her running as true and backed her

heavily to win the Dewhurst Plate. O'Hara was brought over from France

to ride her, and she was again unplaced. Some people declared she was no

stayer, some that her victories at Epsom and Ascot had been flukes;

others spoke of coughing in the Starkey Lodge Stables; a few murmured

that a coup for next year's Derby was being carefully engineered.

"I knew it would bring bad luck to call her Vanity Girl," Dorothy

lamented. "Sell her. Get rid of her. Get rid of them all."

"Sell the Derby winner?" Tony ejaculated. "My dear Doodles, you surely

must realize that her form at Newmarket was too bad to be true. If she

can beat Full Moon at home, and if Full Moon can beat the winner of the

Middle Park as he did in the Boscawen Stakes, one or other of them

_must_ win the Derby. We'll see how they winter. Meanwhile I've sold

Moonbeam to Houston. He paid me twenty-six thousand pounds. He intends

to start a stud; I'm bound to say he got my horse cheap; whatever

Starkey says, Chimpanzee would never have beaten him again; but I wanted

the money."

"I'm sorry you've had to sell Moonbeam, but do sell Vanity Girl, too.

Don't bet any more on any of them. Run Full Moon for the Derby, and if

he wins be content with that. Then we could start a stud at Clare

ourselves. But do get rid of Vanity Girl."

She felt as the dowager must have felt when she was trying to dissuade

Tony from marrying an actress; she instanced every disadvantage she

could think of for the filly; but Tony was obstinate.

They were going out that afternoon to the Pierian Hall. Sylvia Scarlett,

after over two years' absence in America, had returned to England and

suddenly taken the fancy of the public with a new form of entertainment

that was considered very futurist. Dorothy did not think that her

performance deserved all the praise it had received, but she felt

jealous of Sylvia's success and, turning to Tony in the interval, said,

fiercely, that sometimes she wished she had never married him.

"I should have done better to stick to the stage," she vowed.

"If you're wishing you hadn't married me because you'd like to be doing

this sort of thing," said Tony, "you can spare your regrets. This, my

dear Doodles, is the rottenest show I ever saw in my life."

"But it's a success."

"Only because it's so devilish peculiar. If I walked down Bond Street in

pajamas I should attract a certain amount of attention the first time I

did it, but people would get used to it, and I should soon be forgotten.

By the way, would you like to send round a card?"

"No, no," said Dorothy. "I've seen quite enough of her from where we

are."

"Don't get bitter, Doodles. I don't know what's come over you lately.

You seem to hate everything and everybody."

That winter was a miserable one, because Tony took to baccarat again,

and, having been accustomed to bet on the turf in large sums, he carried

his methods to the tables with such recklessness that Dorothy, unable to

stand the strain, left him in London and went down to Clare. She had a

notion to kill herself out hunting, but even in this she was

unsuccessful, for in February all the hunters, including Mignonette,

were sold. Moreover, at the end of the month a valuer arrived with an

authorization from Tony to complete the details for a forthcoming

auction of the whole property as it stood, pictures and all. Dorothy

hastened up to London and demanded what was the matter.

"The matter is that I've got to sell Clare."

"Sell Clare?" she repeated. "I suppose you mean mortgage it?"

"Mortgage it? It's mortgaged already."

"But you paid that off."

"Yes, once. But you don't suppose that I've always got money handy?" he

asked, petulantly. "Some damned firm has bought up all my bills; I'm

being pressed all round; and the Jews won't lend me another farthing."

"Then you must sell the horses."

"The Derby winner? They're my only chance of keeping out of the

bankruptcy court. They're all we have, Doodles."

"You have Clare."

"How can I pay the interest on the mortgages and live at Clare? Try to

be a little reasonable. I've got a good offer, and the money will come

in very handy for the final plunge."

"You're mad."

"All right. I'm mad."

"But your mother?"

"I've given Greenish notice to leave Cherrington Cottage and I'm

reserving that from the sale."

"But what will your mother live on?"

"Oh, of course her jointure will be paid. Besides, I tell you that this

season with Full Moon and Vanity Girl I simply can't go wrong. The

mistake I made was playing baccarat with my ready cash."

"Won't Houston help you?"

"My dear Doodles, it's Houston who's going to buy Clare."

She was silent before the revelation of what for long she had surmised.

The quadrangle of the hospital in Rhodes where she had admitted openly

that for Clare she would do anything flashed upon her vision, and the

thought of that Oriental patience practised for so long terrified her.

His desire for her must have been kindled years ago, a desire that, once

kindled, had been fed by the will to revenge himself for being what he

was upon Clarehaven for being what _he_ was. It was Houston who had

subtly helped his rival along the road to ruin, taking him by the arm as

it were to the edge of the precipice and toppling him over. Now it was

her place to interview this enemy, plead with him, entreat him to be

content with what he had done already ... but of what use would

entreaties be? Of no use except to stimulate the lust of victory.

"You can't sell Clare to Houston," she was saying, mechanically, lest

her silence should be noticed. "You can't sell Clare to Houston," she

was repeating; and then she was off again, chasing the excited, restless

ideas in her brain until she should have driven them like poultry into a

corner and be able to pick the victim that should serve her best. Yes,

yes, if Houston really did covet her, she still had a chance to preserve

Clare. There was no weaker adversary for a woman whose heart was

untouched than a man who was madly in love ... no weaker adversary....

Should she write to Houston and give him the idea that by pressing her

hard he could win? In the past she had known how to cook a dozen geese

in fierce ovens without cooking her own by mistake, without even

burning her fingers. If Houston had waited years, he would surely be

willing to risk a few more weeks.

"You can't sell Clare to Houston," she said, once more.

"For God's sake, don't go on repeating that like a parrot," said Tony.

"I'm going round to settle the matter now."

A few moments later the door of the flat slammed behind him. Houston

lived in Albany, not five minutes away, and Dorothy went across to the

telephone.

"Yes? Who's speaking?"

"Dorothy Clarehaven. Listen," she said, hurriedly. "Once you lent me

money, or at any rate you helped me make money, and you were always very

decent about it. Won't you do the same thing again? You know that Tony

is putting everything on the ability of one of our two horses to win the

Derby. Tell me--there's every reason to suppose he will win the

Derby--why shouldn't you lend him enough to prevent his selling Clare?"

"Why not, indeed?" said Mr. Houston. "But what's the security?"

"Aren't the horses a security?"

"Horses are very capricious, almost as capricious as women."

"Would you prefer a woman as security?" she asked, trying to rake up

from nine years ago a coquetry that had once been so profitable. It was

easier by telephone. "Supposing I offered myself as security?"

So much was she playing a part of long ago that instinctively she had

used her old invincible gesture of lightly touching a man's sleeve. That

also was easier by telephone.

"I could lend a good deal," twanged the voice of the buyer along the

wires. "I could lend a good deal."

"Very well then," said Dorothy. "Lend _me_ the money."

"By telephone? Not good enough. Come, come, let's be frank, let's be

brutally frank. You know you're worth twenty Derby winners to me; but,

as I said, women are more capricious than horses. I'm no longer a

schoolboy. Are you in earnest or not?"

"Of course I'm in earnest," she said. "Why should you think I wasn't?"

"So much in earnest that you'll come to my rooms this afternoon and tell

me so?"

"Yes, if you like," she replied, without hesitating. "But you must prove

to me that you're in earnest too. Send me something on account."

"How much do you want?"

"Oh, I don't know," she said. "About fifty thousand pounds I suppose."

Dorothy's sense of proportion about large sums of money had been

destroyed by her husband's extravagant betting. When one lives with a

man who will win L50,000 at Ascot and lose it all and more the following

week, it is difficult to preserve a table of comparative values. She

supposed that L50,000 would represent about half the price of Clare, and

the importance she attributed to Clare gave money such a relative

unimportance that she saw nothing even faintly ridiculous in demanding a

sum of this magnitude from Houston. Perhaps he was impressed by the size

of her demand into believing that she really was in earnest about

accepting his proposals; even a financier like himself might be excused

for supposing that a woman, one of the most beautiful women in England

and a countess to boot, does not ask for L50,000 without being in

earnest. At the same time it appealed to his sense of humor that any

woman, even England's most beautiful countess, should ask for L50,000 by

telephone.

"Why, it's not even a note of hand," he chuckled, and his laugh,

traveling from Albany to Halfmoon Street along the wires, lost its mirth

on the way and reached Dorothy with the sound of a dropped banjo.

"Well, I must have something to prove you're in earnest," she argued,

fiercely. "Tony is on his way to see you now. He'll be with you in

another minute. Tell him that as a friend you can't let him sell Clare.

Offer him enough to tide him over the Derby. I'm willing to risk

everything on that."

"Are you trying to tell me that if Clarehaven pulls off the Derby our

arrangement is canceled? Ring off. Nothing doing, dear lady."

Away in Albany she heard a bell shrill; it was like a prompter's warning

of the play's ending.

"That's Tony now," she cried. "Do what I ask. Give him enough. He'll say

how much is necessary for the moment. Lend it to him on the security of

Clare. Buy up his mortgages. Do what you like, and if Tony comes back

with Clare still his, at any rate until he has lost all or saved all on

the Derby, I'll come to Albany this afternoon and thank you."

"Tangibly?" murmured Houston.

"Tangibly."

Her agitated breath had so bedewed the mouthpiece that when with

trembling hands she replaced the holder it was like being released from

a kiss.

VI

Tony came back from his visit to Houston in a temper of serene optimism.

"Well, Doodles," he cried, gaily, "I've saved Clare for you."

"Oh, you've saved Clare, have you?" She could not resist a slight

accentuation of the pronoun, but he did not notice it.

"Yes, Houston was very decent. I told him how much I hated getting rid

of the old place, and he was very decent. Of course he knows from

Starkey that the Derby is a certainty and that in Full Moon and Vanity

Girl I've got the two best three-year-olds in England."

"You're still infatuated with the filly?"

"Now wait a minute. Don't begin arguing till you hear what's been

decided. Houston is going to lend me enough cash to pay off the present

mortgages of Clare, and when that is done I'm going to mortgage the

place to him on the understanding that if I don't settle up on the

Monday after the Derby he takes immediate possession. I told him that I

should want some ready money, and he offers to buy whichever horse I

don't run in the Derby."

"Then sell him Vanity Girl," said Dorothy, quickly. She could hardly

refrain from adding, "One of us he must have."

"Don't be in such a hurry. At present Full Moon has engagements in the

Two Thousand Guineas and the Derby, also in the Grand Prix and the

Leger. Vanity Girl is entered for the Thousand Guineas, the Derby, and

the Oaks. I shall run Full Moon for the Guineas; if he wins he will be

the Derby favorite. In that case I shall scratch Vanity Girl for the

Thousand Guineas, and we'll have a secret trial at Winsley. Houston

hasn't taken Moonbeam away yet, and Starkey is to put him into strong

work for this trial. If Full Moon shows up best in the trial I shall

sell Vanity Girl to Houston, who will run her in the Oaks; then I shall

back Full Moon for the Derby till the cows come home. But if, as Starkey

thinks and as I think, Vanity Girl is the goods, Houston is to have Full

Moon for ten thousand pounds as soon as I've scratched him for the

Derby. I don't want to scratch him until I've got my money out on the

filly, but I shall get busy quickly, and the public will have plenty of

time to know which horse I think is going to win. Then you and I,

Doodles dear, will retire from the turf and live ever afterward at

Clare."

"And if Full Moon doesn't win the Guineas?"

"Oh, I've thought of that. In that case I shall run Vanity Girl in the

Thousand Guineas, declare to win with either in the Derby, and Houston

is to have his pick after the race for ten thousand pounds."

"And you've thought out all this wonderful and complicated plan of

campaign?"

"Not entirely," Tony admitted.

"Not at all," said Dorothy, sharply. "You know perfectly well that

Houston thought out every detail of it."

She wondered if a man who could juggle like this with the future of

horses might not be equally expert with women. But no, he wanted the

woman; he did not want the horses. She sent a note round to Albany

saying that a bad headache kept her at home that afternoon, but that she

fully appreciated the good will he had just shown and that she hoped to

see him at dinner to-morrow. She knew that she could not keep Houston at

arm's-length indefinitely, but if she could keep him there until, at any

rate, Clare was temporarily safe she should have a breathing-space until

June. Then if Tony lost the Derby, she should have to offer herself to

preserve Clare; but if he won, she and Clare would both be saved.

"God!" she cried to her soul, "with me it always seems that June is to

decide everything."

When the following night Houston reproached her for breaking the

appointment of yesterday she reminded him that he, too, had only made

promises so far; but when Houston kept his word and freed Clare until

the settling day after Epsom, she still held back.

"You'll appreciate me all the more for being kept waiting."

"I've waited years," he said.

"I'll go for a drive with you to-morrow."

So it went on until the week before the Guineas.

"You're trying to fool me. You think you can get something for nothing

as easily now as you could when you were at the Vanity."

"Be reasonable, my dear man," she begged. "Your money is perfectly safe.

What are you risking? If Tony loses the Derby you win me the moment you

put in my hands the title-deeds of Clare. If Tony wins the Derby...."

She let her deep-brown eyes gaze into his.

"Kiss me," said Houston. "Kiss me once and I'll believe you."

A good lady's maid is bound to enjoy a considerable amount of intimacy

in her relationship with her mistress; no lover is allowed as much.

Dorothy from youth had trained her kisses to be her servants; they had

always served her well, and if a degree of intimacy was unavoidable it

was always the intimacy of a servant, which does not count. One of these

kisses she summoned to her aid now.

Tony proposed that Lonsdale should drive them down to Newmarket for the

Guineas, but Lonsdale said he was booked to fly on that day.

"You never come near us now," said Dorothy, reproachfully.

"I can't stand that fellow Houston. I can't think how you can bear him

around all the time."

"He's very amusing," said Dorothy.

"So's a bishop in a bathing-dress. If you want amusement you can get

plenty of it," Lonsdale growled, "without having to depend on a fellow

like that."

Tufton, who was as sensitive as a tress of seaweed to the atmosphere,

had also neglected his old friends recently, and Dorothy knew by his

manner that people must now be talking very hard about herself and

Houston.

Tony kept his promise not to bet heavily on the result of the Guineas,

and Full Moon's win did not do more than keep quiet a certain number of

low-class creditors who had for some time been supplying Lord and Lady

Clarehaven with such trifles as wine, food, and clothes. However, the

win did seem to make the Derby a certainty for the stable; Full Moon and

Vanity Girl, unlike Moonbeam, had both won at Epsom as two-year-olds,

and if Vanity Girl could beat Full Moon, surely no horse in England

could beat her on a course to which she had already shown her

partiality. When the filly did not appear in the Thousand Guineas the

quidnuncs, the how-nows, and the what-nots of the turf said she had

wintered disappointingly and that she would never be seen in the Oaks.

There was scarcely a sporting paper that did not assure its readers that

they would soon hear of Vanity Girl's having been scratched for both the

Derby and the Oaks. She was a flier, but a non-stayer, and the Stewards'

Cup at Goodwood was her journey.

At the same time the quidnuncs, the how-nows, and the what-nots of the

turf were puzzled to find that after Full Moon's victory in the Guineas

no money from Starkey Lodge seemed to be going on the colt's chances for

the Derby. All the touts set hard to work to solve what was called the

Starkey Lodge Puzzle; Winsley and the hamlets round were frequented by

inquisitive men whose pockets were bulging with sheaves of telegraph

forms.

"They think we've got something up our sleeves," said the trainer to the

owner. It was half past four o'clock of a morning early in May; Tony,

Dorothy, Houston, and Starkey had just taken up their positions to watch

the trial that was to decide which horse should carry the Clarehaven

colors a month hence. They had motored down to Winsley the night before;

and under a cold sky of turquoise scattered with pearls and amethysts

they had ridden up here at dawn; but when their clothing had been taken

off the horses, heads had popped up like rabbits from behind every

hillock along the course.

"No good running it this morning," said the trainer, shouting some abuse

at the touts and galloping his hack in the direction of the horses.

The sun was now well about the rounded edge of the downs; the air of the

morning was lustrous and scented with young grass upon which the dew lay

like golden wine.

"You can't get up too early for these touts," Starkey told them at

breakfast, "and if we want to know where we are for the Derby a bit

before any one else, we'll have to run the trial by moonlight. I'll keep

'em on the hop all the day before and tire some of these Nosey Parkers

into staying at home for once in their lives."

Dorothy was never sorry of an excuse to spend a few days with the

horses. They had caused her so much misery; but she had no ill will when

she saw them.

"Yes," said the trainer. "A moonlight trial. That's the ticket. What

with Full Moon and Moonbeam you can't say it isn't highly suitable. I'm

not going to pretend that Moonbeam is up to his best form. Thinking Mr.

Houston was going to take him to the stud, I only began putting him into

strong work a month ago. So I thought we'd run them at weights for sex,

and put in a couple of good handicappers belonging to Mr. Ginsberg to

make a bit of a field."

At two o'clock there was the clank of a pail in the stable-yard,

followed by a low murmur of voices and the grumble of the big yard gates

being cautiously opened. Presently the team emerged and walked slowly up

the village street, where half a dozen touts were fast asleep, because

they must be up at dawn to haunt the entrance to the Starkey Lodge

Stables. By the magic of the moon the horses in their clothing were

turned into the caparisoned steeds of knights-at-arms setting forth upon

a romantic quest. Dorothy, Houston, Tony, and the trainer followed on

hacks; and even when far out of hearing of the most vigilant tout they

continued to talk in half-tones. So breathless was the night that the

thundering of the hoofs coming nearer and nearer over the turf seemed to

vibrate the stars, and Dorothy had a fancy that presently all the people

in the little villages below the rim of the downs would wake and run

with lanterns up here to know if the moon had fallen down upon the great

world.

Vanity Girl won the trial; Moonbeam was second; the winner of the

Guineas was third.

"Well, I hope that's decisive enough," said Tony, gleefully. "Starkey,

you were right!"

He and the trainer moved off in excited conversation. Houston took

Dorothy's hand, and she did not try to withdraw it from his grasp;

Vanity Girl was going to win the Derby; Clare would be safe in June; she

should be safe in June. The benevolent moon, quite undisturbed by all

this mad nocturnal galloping, gazed blandly at Dorothy's complaisance;

she would not have put a cloud up to her face for much more than that,

the unscrupulous old bawd.

A week later the following paragraph appeared in one of the sporting

weeklies:

THE STARKEY LODGE PUZZLE

Rumor says that the young Earl of Clarehaven, who has recently had

very heavy losses on the turf, positively intends to capture the

Derby this year. It was only a few months ago that we had to

condole with the gallant young nobleman on the sad necessity which

forced him to sell that great horse Moonbeam last year to the

well-known South African capitalist, Mr. Lionel Houston, who

indorsed the public view that Moonbeam's defeat in the Derby by his

own horse Chimpanzee was not true form when he sold Chimpanzee to

an Australian syndicate of breeders and bought Moonbeam for the

stud he is now forming, and which we have no doubt will give many

famous new names to the history of English racing. But our readers'

present concern is what is popularly known as the Starkey Lodge

Puzzle. We have the highest authority for saying that this is no

longer a puzzle. At an important trial held in great secrecy on the

Starkey Lodge training-grounds it was conclusively established that

Vanity Girl is more than likely to give the Blue Riband of the turf

to Lord Clarehaven and console him for the failure of Moonbeam. It

will interest our readers from the smallest punter upward to hear

that Full Moon, the victor of the Two Thousand Guineas and the

present Derby favorite, will not run at Epsom, having been sold

like his half-brother to Mr. Lionel Houston, who no doubt intends

to keep him for the St. Leger, a race which he is ambitious of

winning. We need scarcely point out to our readers the obvious tip

for this year's Derby, and we do not hesitate to plump right out

for Vanity Girl as the winner. We were the only paper to advise our

readers not to back Full Moon until the intentions of the stable

were a little plainer, and to all those who failed to follow our

advice we can only say, "I told you so." Lord Clarehaven has done

well to scratch the winner of the Guineas, for there is no doubt

that if both the colt and his stable companion had faced the

starter at Epsom the public would have followed the son of Cyllene.

As it is, we confidently expect to see Vanity Girl a raging

favorite before the week is out, and we may remind our readers that

Lord Clarehaven's beautiful chestnut has already shown that she

likes the Epsom course by winning the Woodcote Stakes last year.

Her running at Newmarket last autumn may be discounted. We happened

to know that the stable was coughing; as we have hinted, the

gallant young nobleman who sports the black, white, and purple was

very hard hit by her defeats, and this expression of renewed

confidence in the chestnut daughter of Spearmint cannot be

disregarded.

The people who had hurried to put their money on Full Moon grumbled

loudly; but the public appreciated the clear lead that Tony had given

them. He had put his own money on Vanity Girl before the result of the

trial leaked out, and though he had obtained tens against the first two

thousand he wagered, the news ran round the clubs so quickly that even

before the public was warned by the scratching of Full Moon that Vanity

Girl was the hope of Clare, he was finding it hard to get fours against

the filly; after that her price shortened to five to two; in the week

before the race it was only six to four; in the ring on the day itself

not a bookmaker was risking more than eleven to ten, and with money

still pouring in faster than ever she seemed likely to start at odds on,

an unprecedented price for a horse that had not been seen in public

since two consecutive defeats in the autumn of the year before. The

public could not be blamed for their eagerness to back the filly. It was

generally known that Clarehaven either had to win the Derby or be

ruined, and if he preferred Vanity Girl to the winner of the Guineas at

such a crisis in his affair she must indeed be sure of her success. If

the public had known that even his wife's honor was in pawn besides his

house and his lands they could not have been more confident.

"If Vanity Girl fails," Dorothy asked, on the morning of the race, "you

won't have a halfpenny left?"

"I might have an odd hundred pounds," Tony reckoned.

"And your mother--and Bella?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"I suppose Uncle Chat will look after them."

"And us?"

"Oh, we'll emigrate or something. Rather fun, don't you know. I shall

wangle something. The going will be hardish," he said, looking at the

sky, "and that's always in her favor. She hated that Newmarket mud last

autumn. Come on, Doodles, the car's waiting."

They walked down the steps of the flat, and the porter who had hurried

out to shut the door of the car touched his cap.

"Good luck, my lady! Good luck, my lord! Shepherd's Market is on Vanity

Girl to the last copper."

"Put on a sovereign for yourself, Galloway," said his lordship, grandly

proffering the coin.

Several loafers who had sometimes run for his lordship's cabs shouted,

"Hurrah for the Derby favorite!" and Tony flung them some silver to back

his filly. The road to Epsom was thronged; Tony, who was obviously

feeling nervous, had left the driving to the chauffeur, and was sitting

back with Dorothy in the body of the car.

"I think Lonnie might have come with us," he said, fretfully.

"Does it bore you so much driving with me alone?" she asked.

"Don't be silly! Of course not. But I'm nervy and.... Oh, but what rot!

Nothing can go wrong."

They were passing a four-in-hand with loud toots upon their Gabriel

horn, which were being answered by the guard of the coach, when he

suddenly recognized the occupants of the car. Standing up, he blew a

dear "Viewhalloo!" and shouted: "Berkshire's on the filly, my lord, to

the last baby! Hurrah for Vanity Girl!" There was a block in the

traffic; the occupants of every vehicle in earshot, from the gray hats

and laces of the four-in-hand to the pearlies and plumes of a coster's

cart, applauded the earl and countess, each after his own fashion.

"Don't forget the Mile End Road, Mr. Hearl of Clarehaven," bawled one of

the costers, "if that's who you are. Hoobeeluddiray!" he went on, and

caught his moke an ecstatic thwack on the crupper.

In the ring friends and acquaintances crowded round them, eager to say

how they had backed Vanity Girl and how fervently they hoped for her

victory. There was no doubt that if the filly was beaten a groan of

disappointment would resound through England.

"I think it's so sweet that Lord Clarehaven's horse should be called

Vanity Girl," some foolish woman was babbling. "So sweet and romantic,"

she twittered on.

"Yes, what devotion," chirped another as foolish.

Tony wanted to go round to the paddock to have a few last words with

Starkey and the jockey O'Hara, but Dorothy did not think she could bear

to see the filly before the race.

"I'm so nervous," she said, "that I feel I should communicate my nerves

to her. But don't you bother about me. I'll wait for you in the

inclosure."

"Where's Houston?" said Tony, irritably. "I thought he was going to meet

us."

At that moment a messenger-boy came up. "Are you the Earl of

Clarehaven?" he asked, perkily, and handed Tony a note, which the latter

read out:

"DEAR CLAREHAVEN,--To what will I'm sure be my lifelong regret,

important business prevents me from being at Epsom to see your

triumph. Believe me, my dear fellow, that there is no one who hopes

more cordially than I do for your success to-day. My kindest

regards to your wife and tell her from me that I'm looking forward

to our Derby dinner at the Carlton to-night.

Yours ever sincerely,

LIONEL HOUSTON."

"Funny chap! But I believe he's sincere," Tony muttered, "though it

would be all to his interest if I lost."

But how much to his interest, Dorothy thought, how little did Tony know.

She waited for him in the company of the twittering women until he

returned from the paddock.

"They're going down now," he told her.

"Everything all right?" she asked.

"Yes, yes." He was biting his nails and cursing the focusing

arrangements of his field-glasses.

"They're off!"

The roar of the crowd was like a mighty storm within which isolated

remarks were heard like the spars of a ship going one by one.

"She isn't finding it so easy."

"He's taking her into the rails too soon."

"My God! I wouldn't lay sixpence there won't be an objection for

crossing. Did you see that?"

"Go on, Vanity Girl! Go on!"

"Go on, you blasted favorite!"

"She's swishing her tail."

"No, she's not. That's ... yes, it's her. Vanity Girl! Vanity Girl!"

"Go on, Vanity Girl!"

The roaring died down to a suppressed murmur of agitation.

"What's the matter with the favorite?"

"O'Hara's flogging her along."

The horses flashed past the stand with the black, white and purple of

Clarehaven twinkling in the ruck like a setting star.

"Tony!" Dorothy screamed. "She's beaten!"

"Oh well," said the owner, "don't make such a noise about it."

He was smiling a foolish, fixed smile, but he let his glasses drop from

his hands on the toes of a lady close by.

"I'm very sorry, ma'am," said Tony, raising his hat. "I hope I didn't

hurt you."

The injured lady glared at him; it was her first Derby, and perhaps she

did not realize that it mattered who won or lost.

"Come on, Doodles," said Tony. "Home. For God's sake, let's get home."

He would not wait to hear any explanation of the filly's defeat, but

pushed his way savagely through the crowd to find the car.

"Gorblime!" a ragged vender of unauthorized race-cards was ejaculating

near the garage. "Gor strike me blurry well pink! She'd make a blurry

tortoise crick his blurry neck looking round to see why she was dawdling

behind. Race-horse? Why, I reckon a keb-horse could give her three stone

and win in a blurry canter, I do. Vanity Girl? Vanity Bitch, that's what

she ought to have been called."

VII

The news of the defeat had already reached Halfmoon Street, and Galloway

inclined his head when they passed quickly from the car into the hall of

the flats, as if his patrons were returning from a funeral.

"We must telephone round to the Carlton to say that the dinner is off,"

said Tony; even that small action he left to his wife, himself sitting

for the rest of the evening mute of speech, but drumming upon the table

with his fingers or sometimes tambourinating upon an ash-tray. His

dinner consisted of anchovy sandwiches washed down by brandy. There was

no word from Houston, and Dorothy supposed that he was waiting to hear

from her. "Going! Going! Clare! Clare! Clare!" The auctioneer's hammer

seemed to be striking her temples, and, passing her hand over her

forehead, she realized that it was only Tony who was drumming upon the

table or tambourinating upon the ash-tray. She went to bed before he did

and, lying awake in the rosy light of the reading-lamp, she wondered if,

perhaps, he would try to forget this day in her arms, half hoped he

would, and picked up the hand-mirror beside her bed to see how she was

looking. He must have sat up drinking till very late--she had fallen

asleep and did not hear him come to bed--and in the morning his eyes

were bloodshot, his razor tremulous.

The letter-box was choked with bills; but there were several letters of

condolence, and a reminder of the Day of Judgment from an enthusiastic

enemy of the turf who, with ill-concealed relish, advised his lordship

to observe the hand of God in the retribution which had been meted out

to him and to turn away from his wickedness. Finally there were letters

from O'Hara, the jockey, and Houston.

EPSOM SUMMER MEETING 1914.

_Wednesday evening._

MY LORD,--I had hoped to have a few words with your lordship after

the race, but was told you already left the course. I was intending

to say that I could not go through what I suffered to-day on

Friday, and would be obliged if your lordship wouldn't insist I

would ride Vanity Girl in the Oaks. My lord, the filly is tired,

and I wouldn't say another race mightn't kill her dead. It's not

for me to give advice to your lordship, but how you ever come to

run her in the Derby I don't know. She never was a stayer. I saw

that plainly enough last autumn at Newmarket. I'm going back to

France as soon as I hear from your lordship you won't run her in

the Oaks. I'm engaged to ride Full Moon in the Grand Prix by Mr.

Houston, and I hope I won't have to suffer what I suffered this

afternoon. It's enough to make a jockey chuck riding for good and

all.

I am,

Your lordship's obedient servant,

PATRICK O'HARA.

Pardon me if I've written a bit unfeelingly. It wasn't the filly's

fault. She was tired. She didn't seem to know where she was,

somehow, and when I flogged her along it near broke my heart to do

it. She couldn't seem to understand what she was wanted to do. Poor

little lady, I was so savage I could have shot her. But afterward I

went and had a look at her, and had a few words with Mr. Starkey

when he was abusing her.

QZI ALBANY, W.

_Wednesday._

DEAR CLAREHAVEN,--I'm not going to worry you with sympathy at such

a moment. But I'm writing as soon as possible to let you know that

last week, owing to circumstances which would not interest anybody

except a business man, I was compelled to part with my Clare

mortgages for ready money, and I'm afraid that without doubt

Reinhardt and Co. will foreclose on Monday. I wish I could offer to

lend you the money to put yourself straight again, but I have been

speculating myself and for the moment am a little short. By the

way, I think Full Moon is a good thing for the Grand Prix. Perhaps

you might get a bit on. Kindest regards to Lady Clarehaven.

Sincerely,

LIONEL HOUSTON.

Tony telegraphed to scratch Vanity Girl for the Oaks and ordered that

she should be sold outright for what she would fetch; L200 was the

figure, a tenth of what she had cost as a yearling and an insignificant

fraction of what she had cost in ruinous disappointment, to which,

perhaps, dishonor was soon to be added.

Houston's letter showed plainly that nothing was to be hoped for in that

quarter.

"Reinhardt and Co.," scoffed Tony. "In my opinion Reinhardt and Co.

includes Houston."

Dorothy wondered if the communication was intended to bring her quickly

to heel, to show her brutally that unless she kept her bargain Clare was

lost. She supposed that somehow Houston would be ingenious enough to

keep Tony from being suspicious when he found his house and lands

restored to him, and she even wondered if under the demoralizing effect

of gambling he would much mind if he did know. She looked at him with a

feeling half compassionate, half contemptuous while he was calculating,

with an optimism rapidly rising, every knickknack in the flat at four

times its value in the sale-room. She persuaded him to go out and forget

his troubles at the theater, and telephoned to the Albany that she was

coming to see Mr. Houston after dinner.

Dorothy dressed herself in a frock of champagne silk and wore no jewelry

except a drop pendant of black pearls, thinking ironically, when she

fastened it round her neck, how premature Tony had been in estimating

that it would fetch L500 at auction. She flung over her shoulders a

diaphanous black opera-cloak stenciled in gold and, covering her face

with a heavy veil of black Maltese lace, she passed out of Halfmoon

Street and walked slowly up Piccadilly in the June starlight. On second

thought she decided to enter Albany from Burlington Street instead of

through the courtyard, and, turning into Bond Street, moved like a ghost

along the pavements where on thronged mornings in old Vanity days her

radiance and roses used to compete for the public regard with the

luxurious shops on either side. Burlington Street at this hour was

deserted, and the porter of Albany with his appearance of an antique

coachman, and his manner between a butler's and a beadle's, dared not

hesitate to admit such an empress, and perhaps marveled, when he watched

her walk imperiously along the glass-roofed cloister that smelled of

freshly watered geraniums toward QZI, with what honey the ugly tenant of

it was able to attract this proud-pied moth.

Lady Clarehaven might have been excused for feeling a heroine, a Monna

Vanna in the tent of the conqueror, when she found herself in the big

square room which she now visited for the first time. She did not

indulge herself with heroics, however; it seemed to her so natural for

her to save Clare that the adventure was as commonplace as when once in

early days on the stage she had pawned a piece of jewelry she did not

like in order to save a set of furs to which she attached a great

importance. She threw back the opera-cloak and sat down in an arm-chair

to wait for Houston with as little perturbation as if she were waiting

for a dinner guest in her own drawing-room.

Suddenly he appeared from an inner doorway and, turning on several more

lights, looked at her. He was in evening dress, and the sudden glare

gave the impression that he was going to perform; he looked more like an

intelligent ape than ever when he was in evening dress.

"Well, here I am," she said.

Her coolness seemed to confuse him, and he began to ask her how she

liked his rooms, to say that he had been lucky enough to take them on as

they stood from a man called Prescott who had killed himself here. One

had the impression that he had bought the furniture for a song on

account of the unpleasant associations with a suicide.

"I'm rather tired of values," said Dorothy. "Clarehaven has been valuing

the flat at Halfmoon Street."

"Will you have something to drink?"

"Do you think that I require stimulating? Thanks, I don't."

It was curious that this man, who in Rhodes had appeared so sinister and

powerful and almost irresistible, should here in this decorous room with

only a background of good-breeding appear fussy and ineffective.

"But let me recommend you to have a drink," Dorothy laughed. "For, now

that you've got me, you're as awkward as a baboon with a porcelain

teacup."

Her instinct told her that she must dispel this atmosphere of

embarrassment unless she wanted to be bowed out of the chambers as from

those of a money-lender who had been compelled most respectfully and

without offense to refuse a loan to her ladyship. The allusion to the

baboon was sufficient. The decorum of Albany was shattered and Houston

held her in his arms.

At that moment the servant tapped at the door and announced that Lord

Clarehaven was in the anteroom; before Houston could hustle his quaking

servant outside and lock the door Tony appeared in the entrance, a

riding-crop in his hands.

"My God! you rascal," he was saying, "I've just found out all about you.

I've been fooled by you and that scoundrel of a trainer you recommended.

I've been ... That trial.... I've seen.... I've understood ... you

blackguard!" Without noticing Dorothy he had forced Houston across a

chair and was thumping him with the crop. "Yes, I've heard all about

you.... Of course people tell me afterward ... damned cowards.... You

damned sneaking hound ... I.D.B.... hound.., you dog ... and there's

nothing to be done because you were too clever ... curse you ... but

I'll have you booted off every racecourse in England...."

By this time he had beaten Houston insensible, and, looking up,

perceived his wife.

"Tony," she cried, "you really are rather an old darling."

"What are you doing here?" he panted.

"I was pleading for Clare."

"You oughtn't to have done that," he said, roughly. "You might get

yourself talked about, don't you know. Come along. It's rather lucky I

blew in. I met old Cobbett, who talked to me like a father. Too late, of

course, and nothing can be done. Besides.... However, come along. As

you're dressed we might see the last act."

"We've seen that already," said Dorothy. So brilliant and gay was she

that Tony forgot about everything. So did she, and they walked home arm

in arm along the deserted streets of Mayfair like lovers.

The scene in Albany was not made public property; Houston came to

himself in time to prevent that. Dorothy accepted Tony's interruption as

a sign that fortune did not intend her to preserve Clare, and she now

watched almost with equanimity the fabric of a great family crumble

daily to irreparable ruin. Then Full Moon, the winner of the Guineas,

scratched ignominiously for the Derby, won the Grand Prix in a canter,

and the following letter from the Earl of Stilton, K.G., appeared in the

_Times_:

SIR,--In the interests of our national sport, which all Englishmen

rightly regard as our most cherished possession, I call upon Lord

Clarehaven to give a public explanation of his recent behavior. The

facts are probably only too painfully known to many of your

readers. In May Lord Clarehaven's horse, Full Moon, won the Two

Thousand Guineas; two years ago his horse Moonbeam won the same

race. Moonbeam ran fourth in the Derby and was transferred to the

same stable as the winner, Chimpanzee. This horse, owned by Mr.

Lionel Houston, was scratched for the St. Leger, and the race was

won by Moonbeam. This was explicable; but when two years later

another of Lord Clarehaven's horses wins the Two Thousand Guineas

and finds his stable companion preferred to him to carry Lord

Clarehaven's colors in the Derby, when, furthermore, the chosen

filly runs like a plater, and when this morning we read that Full

Moon, now in the ownership of Mr. Lionel Houston, has won the Grand

Prix in a canter at a price which the totalizator puts at

sixty-three to one, a proof that nobody in Paris considered the

chances of this animal, the public may, perhaps, demand what it all

means. They will ask still more when I inform them that I have

absolute authority for saying that this horse was heavily backed in

England, which proves that by some his chance was considered

excellent. I have no wish to accuse his lordship of having

deliberately deceived the public for his own advantage; but I do

accuse him of folly that can only be characterized as criminal.

Perhaps he has been the victim of his friend and of his trainer; at

any rate, if his lordship was deceived about the chance of Vanity

Girl, and if it is true that the defeat of Vanity Girl in the Derby

represented to his lordship a loss of thousands of pounds in bets,

he should make this clear. In that case I have no hesitation in

accusing Mr. Lionel Houston, formerly known as Leopold Hausberg, of

having deliberately conspired with the Starkey Lodge trainer to

perpetrate a fraud not only upon their friend and patron, but also

upon the public.

I have the honor to be, sir,

Your obedient servant,

STILTON.

Although Lord Stilton's letter hit the nail on the head, Tony was so

furious at being called a fool in public that he sent the following

letter to the paper:

SIR,--If Lord Stilton had not been my father's friend and a much

older man than myself, I would pull his nose for the impudent

letter he has written about me. The running of my filly in the

Derby is an instance of the uncertainty of fortune, by which I am

the greatest loser. I was convinced by a trial which I saw with my

own eyes between Full Moon and Vanity Girl that the former did not

stand a chance against the filly. It was I who insisted upon

scratching him for the Derby so that the public might be spared the

unpleasant doubt that always exists when an owner runs two horses

in the same race. I sold the colt shortly after this trial to Mr.

Houston, because I wished to put every halfpenny I could raise upon

Vanity Girl. When I say that Mr. Houston is so little a friend of

mine that I was unfortunately compelled to horsewhip him in his

rooms on the day after the Derby, it will be understood even by

Lord Stilton that there can be no possible suggestion of any

collusion between myself and Mr. Houston. I do not know if Lord

Stilton seriously means to insinuate that I have benefited by Full

Moon's victory in the Grand Prix. If he does, the insinuation is

cowardly and unjust. If Lord Stilton is so much concerned for the

future of English sport, let him think twice before he hits a man

who is down. Full Moon did not carry a halfpenny of my money.

I am, sir, etc.,

CLAREHAVEN.

This letter, with the reference to Lord Stilton's nose excised by a

judicious editor, rehabilitated Tony in the eyes of the public and

earned him a gracious apology from Lord Stilton, who also had to

apologize much less graciously to Houston and Starkey, being threatened

with legal proceedings unless he did so. Had there been the least chance

of substantiating the ugly rumors, both earls might have gone to law;

unfortunately legal advice said that neither of them stood a chance with

the astute pair, and public opinion contented itself with compassion for

the gallant young nobleman who had been thus victimized.

It may have been the victory of Full Moon in the Grand Prix with its

suggestion of what might have been, or it may have been only the

invincible optimism of the gambler, that started Tony off again upon his

vice. When by the middle of July he and Dorothy found themselves with

the rent of the flat paid up to Michaelmas, with enough furniture and

enough clothes for present needs and with L250 in ready money, he told

Dorothy that their only chance was for him to make money at cards. It

was in vain that she argued with him; he seemed to have learned nothing

from this disastrous summer, and with L100 in his pocket he went out one

night, to return at six o'clock the next morning with L1,000.

"My luck's in again," he declared, "and I've got a thundering good

system. You shall come with me every night, and I will give you two

hundred pounds, which I must not exceed. Nothing that I say must induce

you to give me another halfpenny. If I lose the two hundred pounds I

must go away. It'll be all right, you'll see. I'm playing at

Arrowsmith's place in Albemarle Street. Arrowsmith himself has promised

not to advance me anything above two hundred pounds, so it'll be all

right."

Dorothy begged him to be satisfied with the L1,000; but it was useless,

and the following night she accompanied him. He won another L1,000, and

when they had walked back under a primrose morning sky to Halfmoon

Street Tony was so elated that he handed over all his winnings to

Dorothy. The next night he lost the stipulated L200, but he came away

still optimistic.

"I'm not going to touch that two thousand" he assured her. "I've got

fifty left of my own, and one always wins when one's down to nothing;

but on no account are you to offer me a halfpenny from your money. It's

absolutely essential that you should bank everything I make."

The next evening Tony took the keeper of the hell aside and told him

that he was to be sure not to let him exceed L50; if he should lose

that, Arrowsmith was not to accept his I.O.U. and on no condition to

allow him to go on. They were playing _chemin de fer_ and Tony's luck

had been poor; when his turn came to take the bank and he was stretching

out his hand for the box of cards Arrowsmith told him he had already

reached his limit.

"Oh, that's all right, Arrowsmith. I only meant that to count if I'd

already had a bank."

"Excuse me, Lord Clarehaven, but I never go back on my word. The

agreement we came to was...."

"That's all right," Tony interrupted, impatiently. "Dorothy, lend me

some money."

"No, no. You made a promise, and really you must stick to it."

"Dash it! I haven't had a single bank this evening."

"You should have thought of that before."

"But, my dear girl, our agreement was that I shouldn't lose more than

two hundred pounds at a sitting. I've only lost fifty pounds to-night."

"If I lend you any more," she said, "I must break into the two thousand

pounds, which you told me I was not to do on any account."

The other players, with heavy, doll-like faces, sat round the table,

waiting until the argument stopped and the game could be resumed. The

keeper of the hell was firm; so was Dorothy; and Clarehaven had to yield

his turn to his neighbor.

"I'll just stay and watch the play for a bit," he said. "It's only three

o'clock." He took a banana from the sideboard and sat down behind the

player who held the bank.

"No, no, come away," Dorothy begged him. "What is the good of tormenting

yourself by watching other people play when you can't play yourself?"

"Damn it, Dorothy," he exclaimed, turning round angrily. "I wish to God

I'd never brought you here. You always interfere with everything I want

to do."

It happened that the bank which Tony had missed won steadily, and while

the heavy-jowled man who held it raked in money from everybody, Tony

watched him like a dog that watches his master eating. At last the bank

was finished, and with a heavy sigh of satisfaction the owner of it

passed on the box to his neighbor.

"How much did you make?" asked Tony, enviously.

"About two thousand five hundred. I'm not sure. I never count my

winnings."

Tears of rage stood in Tony's eyes.

"God! Do you see what you've done for me by your confounded obstinacy?"

he exclaimed to his wife.

All the way home he raged at her, and when they were in the flat he

demanded that she should give him back all his L2,000.

"So you've reached the point," she said, bitterly, "when not even

promises count?"

"If you don't give it back to me," Tony vowed, "I'll sell up the whole

flat. Damn it, I'll even sell my boots," he swore, as he tripped over

some outposts for which there was no place in the line that extended

along the wall of his dressing-room.

Dorothy thought of that lunch-party in Christ Church and of the first

time she had beheld those boots. She remembered that then she had beheld

in them a symbol of boundless wealth. Now they represented a few

shillings in a gambler's pocket. And actually next morning, in order to

show that he had been serious the night before, Tony summoned two buyers

of old clothes to make an offer for them.

"Don't be so childish," Dorothy exclaimed. "You can't sell your boots!

Aren't you going down to camp this year?"

"To camp?" he echoed. "How the deuce do you think I'm going to camp

without a halfpenny? No, my dear girl, a week ago I wrote to resign my

commission in the N.D.D. You might make a slight effort to realize

that we are paupers. And if you won't let me have any of that two

thousand pounds we shall remain paupers."

At that moment a telegram was handed in:

All officers of North Devon Dragoons to report at depot

immediately.

"Hasn't that fool of an adjutant got my letter?" Tony exclaimed.

Another telegram arrived:

Thought under circumstances you would want to cancel letter holding

it till I see you.

"Circumstances? What circumstances?"

In the street outside a newspaper-boy was crying, "Austrian hultimatum!

Austrian hultimatum!"

"My God!" Tony cried, a light coming into his eyes. "It can't really

mean war? How perfectly glorious! Wonderful! Get out, you rascals!" and

he hustled the old-clothes men out of the flat.

Three weeks later Dorothy received the following letter from Flanders:

DEAREST DOODLES,--You'd simply love this. I never enjoyed myself so

much in all my life. Can't write you a decent letter because I'm

just off chivvying Uhlans. It's got fox-hunting beat a thousand

times. Sorry we had that row when I made such an ass of myself at

Arrowsmith's that night. It's a lucky thing you were firm, because

you've got just enough to go on with until I get back. Mustn't say

too much in a letter; but I suppose we shall have chivvied these

bounders back to Berlin in two or three months. Then I shall really

have to settle down and do something in earnest. A man in ours says

that Queensland isn't such a bad sort of hole. Old Cleveden put me

against it by cracking it up so. It's suddenly struck me that

Houston is probably a spy. If he is, you might make it rather

unpleasant for him. I feel I haven't explained properly how sorry I

am, but it's so deuced hard in a letter. By the way, Uncle Chat has

just written rather a stupid letter about my mother's jointure.

Perhaps you'd go down and talk to him about it. He ought to

understand I'm too busy to bother about domestic finance at

present. I had another notion--rather a bright one--that when I get

back you and I could appear on the stage together. Rather a rag,

eh? The captain of my troop was pipped last week. Awful good egg.

I'm acting captain now. Paignton sends his love. Dear old thing, I

wish you were out here with me.

Yours ever,

TONY.

A week later the fifth Earl of Clarehaven was killed in action.