"I am so glad, dear Hilda," said Lady Adela graciously. "Dick would have been disappointed if you had not enjoyed yourself. Where is that boy, by the way?"
"He and Connie have gone to collect Mr. Carmyle's winnings," said Sylvia.
"Has--ha! h'm!--Plumstone won, then?" I enquired, timorously avoiding Lady Adela's eye.
"Yes, worse luck!" replied Mr. Crick lugubriously. "We were all on Mercutio. But Miss Damer stuck to it that Plumstone was the right horse, and made Dicky put on five shillings for her and five for you. They got three to one, I believe."
At this moment Dicky and Miss Damer returned from the ring, and I was duly presented with six half-crowns.
"Three-quarters of an hour till the next race," announced Dicky. "Better have lunch."
By this time the whole party had become infected with that fierce spirit of cupidity which assails respectable Britons when they find themselves in the neighbourhood of that singularly uncorrupt animal, the horse; and the succeeding half-hour was devoted by seven well-born and well-to-do persons to an elaborate consideration of the best means of depriving a hard-working and mainly deserving section of the community of as large a sum of money as possible.
Our symposium resulted in a far from unanimous decision. Lady Adela, having studied the list of owners' names upon the card, handed me a sovereign and instructed me to seek out a book-maker who should be both cheap and respectable, and back the Earl of Moddlewick's Extinguisher and Mr. Hector McCorquodale's Inverary. Mr. Crick, the expert of the party, let fall dark hints on the subject of a quadruped named The Chicken. Dicky and I decided to wait until the numbers went up.
"Dick, you must positively back a horse for me this time," announced Miss Beverley.
"You are getting on, Hilda!" replied The Freak, obviously pleased to find his beloved in sympathy with his simple pleasures.