"That I shouldn't insult the girl by treating her either as a babe or an idiot. Certainly we agree. Besides," thoughtfully, "I happen to want those binoculars...."
A report of this conversation was carried to Patricia by her indignant admirer, the secretary. At the fancy-dress ball held at the hotel that evening, she had an opportunity of warmly thanking Upton for retaining the binoculars.
He said slowly, in the level tones that never altered: "Of course Mixed Races run on chivalrous lines become an absurdity. But Fennimore doesn't know that it's as much fun to lose as to win. He'd say it was, because that's the 'British sporting spirit.'... You hear about it at election-times. But he would never realize the truth of it."
The girl's interest was spurred by this. Though she only said mournfully: "They are very nice binoculars. I have never had any binoculars of my own...."
Upton promised her she should occasionally look through his. And she asked him if he were not by this concession hopelessly damaging his reputation for inflexibility. He smiled; and offered to race her again, for their private satisfaction, down the same course and under the same conditions.
"And shall I get the binoculars, if I win?"
"No; those are beyond your attainment, now. But you'll get the pleasure of feeling that you are equally capable of the performance that won them for me."
"My dear good man, I shan't be able to bear such a stupendous emotion, all at once, without any training...."
"Quarter to three, at the foot of the Loup." And Dacres Upton relinquished her to another partner, from whom she gathered information that Upton was a Captain in the Army, and recently home from India. Her interest was spurred anew; he did not give an impression of the accepted military type.
He was victor again, in their private contest the following afternoon. And Patricia, who had been secretly nourishing a faint hope that he would after all yield the honour to her, and do this with such skilful cunning that she might not even suspect it—Patricia was both surprised and pained ... and extremely respectful.