'Unless you win,' she said.

'Then I will lose on purpose.'

'That will be mean. I never adore meanness. Are you ready?'

And her beautiful horse gathered his legs up under him and whirled her down the grassy ride. Bertie got not so good a start, and rode the gauntlet of the flying turf scattered by his heels, till, a bend of the path favouring him, he drew nearly abreast, pursuing her through sunshine and the flecked shadows on the grass. He had seen her day after day in the Revels, night after night at ball or concert, yet never had her beauty seemed to him so compelling as it did now, as, swaying the rein with dainty finger-tip, her body moving utterly in harmony with the grand swing of her horse's stride, she turned her smiling face to him, all ecstasy at the exhilaration of the gallop, all wide-eyed smile of consternation at the decreasing lead which she had got at the start. And all at once, for the first time, his blood was kindled; he had admired her form as one may admire a perfect piece of sculptured grace, he had admired her splendid vitality, her charming companionship, her intense joie de vivre. But now all the separate, isolated admirations were fused and glowed flamelike. Suddenly she laughed aloud, as he had nearly caught her up.

'Ride, ride!' she cried, in a sudden burst of intimate, upwelling joy that came from she knew not where. 'You will win.'

Apollo pursued Daphne in the vale of Tempe, and in the vales of Long Island Bertie Keynes rode hard after Amelie. And she encouraged him to win, she even drew rein a shade—just a shade—though she had wanted to win so much.

All the afternoon motor-cars, bicycles, carts, tandems, brakes, were arriving, for though it was a quiet Sunday, Mrs. Palmer, it was well-known, liked to see a few friends about teatime, who usually stopped for dinner, and before evening it was as if the Revels were extended a day longer. The weather was extremely hot, and in consequence dinner was served in the great marquee on the terrace. Among others, Mrs. Emsworth had come with those of her company who were to act that night in the theatre. The petit saleté to be produced had never been presented on any stage before, the Lord-Chamberlain of England, with a fatherly regard for the morals of the nation entrusted to him, having deemed that it was too sale; and, as a matter of fact, Mrs. Emsworth rather embraced this opportunity of playing it before a private audience, with a view to seeing whether her public in New York, with their strange mixture of cynical indifference to anything but money, and the even stranger survival of the Puritan spirit, which crops up every now and then as some rare border plant will crop up among the weeds and grasses of a long overgrown garden, would be likely to swallow it. She herself was a little nervous of presenting it there. Bilton, on the other hand, who might be supposed to know the taste of the patrons for whom he catered so successfully, thought it would be an immense success.

'After all, Paris loved it,' he said, as he had a few words with her when they went up to dress for dinner. 'And what is bad enough for Paris is good enough for New York. You may take my word for it that what Paris swallows America will gobble.'

'You mean they are more—more emancipated here?'

'Not at all, but that they are eager to accept anything that has been a success in London or Paris. Why, I produced "Dram-drinking" here. Dead failure. I took it to London, where it ran well, and brought it back here. Tremendous success. We Americans, I mean, are entirely devoid of artistic taste. But we give our decided approbation to what other people say is artistic, which, for your purpose and mine, is the same thing. Left to ourselves, we like David Harum. I produce "Hamlet" here next week. The house is full for the next month. But alter the name and say it is by a new author, and it won't run a week. The papers, to begin with, would all damn it.'