"Let's hear it!"
"Castor first, Pendragon second, Goliath third." The Jew's voice sounded very far away as he spoke the words.
"And Pollux?"
"Blessed if I can make it out! Paragon was fourth. And here are the names of the others." He tore the offending tape into shreds. "Ah"—the machine was ticking again. "What's this? Pollux, one of the favourites, fell at Tattenham Corner when leading. Horse and jockey uninjured."
Mostyn broke into a laugh. "So that's the end of it," he exclaimed. "Something was bound to happen to any horse that ran in my colours. Well, the tension's over, anyway." He fell back upon his pillows. He was quite calm; something seemed to have snapped, and with it had come infinite relief. There would be no more harassing of his nerves, no more blood on the boil. It was over and he had lost. At any rate he could rest.
His father was leaning over him, pressing his hand. "It's all right, Mostyn," the old man was urging in a voice thick with emotion. "You've lost a big fortune, but what does it matter? You will come back to me—my son: I've only got one son now—you, whom I drove from my door."
Mostyn pressed the hand in return. On the other side of him Cicely was whispering words of comfort, words such as only a woman can find. "It will be all right with Rada, too, Mostyn. I'm as sure of that as of my life. She will be so happy at winning that she will forget everything else. And you're not a pauper now, remember that, since you're friends with father again. You can just go to Rada and ask her to be your wife: she'll say 'yes,' or I know nothing of my sex."
Isaacson, too, was voluble in sympathy. "It's not your fault that you've come down, Clithero, my boy. You did your best, and no man can do more. I admire you for your pluck, and every sportsman will admire you as much as I do when the truth is known."
The starting prices were ticked out unheeded while Mostyn's friends stood about his bed; the tape was falling in long coils upon the floor. Outside, in the square, a newsboy could be heard shouting "Winner!" at the top of his voice. The momentous news had been given to London.
Isaacson stepped back to the machine and began once more to run the tape through his fingers, reading out the starting prices as cheerily as he could, as well as any other information that had come to hand. Suddenly he was silent; he held a long strip before him, lifted close to his eyes—for he was a trifle short-sighted—and he was apparently reading the writing upon it over and over again. During these moments his face expressed the most remarkable changes of emotion. He had begun to read carelessly, then his attention had been concentrated; finally, with a great wrench, he tore off the strip, waved it in the air, and gave vent to an undignified and apparently inappropriate shout.