At the door she paused, turned and faced her sisters and their visitor.
"You may dismiss from your mind any idea, Cecil, that I shall give up riding now that I have determined to make the effort. Of course I have no possible thought of winning."
With this Jeanette disappeared.
Afterwards Cecil's teasing speech remained in her memory.
"Was it utterly out of the question that she should win? What a triumph over Cecil Perry if it only were possible."
By night and by day her dreams were tinged with this thought. There was no one to whom she would speak openly of her desire, but the mere suggestion that her stepmother might be successful when she failed increased Jeanette's sense of a carefully repressed dislike.
Unconsciously she was facing a great test of character. Was success of more importance than anything else in life?
CHAPTER VIII
THE TEST
The morning of the day opened in a flame of rose and gold.