He stood there for a minute or two looking at them with interest. Then he turned his back, and once more began circling about the arena in the thick of the crowd, with no chance of seeing a horse again until he could get to the seat to which his ticket entitled him. He took out the bit of pasteboard and examined it again, and he saw that his place was very near the entrance, only he had gone to the right when he came in instead of to the left. By this time the men and women on exhibition in the boxes had begun to lose the attraction of novelty; and Morton walked on as swiftly as he could make his way through the crowd, wishing to get his seat in time to see the competition of the coaches.
He had come almost to the foot of the little flight of steps by which he could reach his seat when he happened to look up, and he caught sight of a familiar face. In a box only a score of feet before him there sat a lady about whose high-bred beauty there could hardly be two opinions. She was probably nearly thirty years old, but she looked fresher than either of the girls by her side. She wore a costume combining studied simplicity and marked individuality; and yet no one who saw her took thought of her attire, for her beauty subdued all things, and made any adornment she might adopt seem as though it were necessary and inevitable.
There was a suggestion of stiffness in her carriage, and perhaps a hint of haughtiness; but when she smiled she was as charming as she was handsome.
As his eyes first fell upon her Morton's heart gave a sudden thump, and then beat swiftly for a minute or two. Although he had not seen her for nearly ten years, he recognized her instantly. She had changed but little since they had met for the last time. He would have known her anywhere and at once.
And if he had been in any doubt as to her identity, it would have been dispelled by the conversation of the two young men who had been walking around the arena just behind him.
"Devilish pretty Mrs. Jimmy Suydam looks to-night, doesn't she?" asked one of them.
"She's had a good summer's rest," the other answered. "She was at St. Moritz with her mother while Jimmy was off with Lord Stanyhurst."
"Drove from Paris to Vienna, didn't he?" the first speaker queried. "I'd rather do it in a sleeper—wouldn't you?"
"I don't know," the second responded. "It's very swagger to drive your own coach all over Europe with a man like Stanyhurst, who knows everybody. I guess Jimmy thought it was cheap at the price. Besides, Punch called him the 'Wandering Jehu,' and they thought that was a great joke over there."
"The joke was at Jimmy's expense, of course," was the next remark. "They say Lord Stanyhurst never pays a bill himself when he can get an American to do it."