She was on the present occasion quite mistress of herself, though the stake was large. She was mistress of herself when Lord Suckling, who had driven from the Downs and brushed all save a spot of white dust out of his baby moustache to make himself presentable, rode up to her to say that the horse Templemore was beaten, and that his sagacity in always betting against favourites would, in this last instance, transfer a “pot of money” from alien pockets to his own.
“Algy Blancove's in for five hundred to me,” he said; adding with energy, “I hope you haven't lost? No, don't go and dash my jolly feeling by saying you have. It was a fine heat; neck-and-neck past the Stand. Have you?”
“A little,” she confessed. “It's a failing of mine to like favourites. I'm sorry for Algy.”
“I'm afraid he's awfully hit.”
“What makes you think so?”
“He took it so awfully cool.”
“That may mean the reverse.”
“It don't with him. But, Mrs. Lovell, do tell me you haven't lost. Not much, is it? Because, I know there's no guessing, when you are concerned.”
The lady trifled with her bridle-rein.
“I really can't tell you yet. I may have lost. I haven't won. I'm not cool-blooded enough to bet against favourites. Addio, son of Fortune! I'm at the Opera to-night.”