Hilary moved back a pace. “We can see better here,” he said, trying to draw Allys along with him. She shook her head obstinately, but said nothing; in her heart she was resolved that Billy should have the comfort of her presence in his hour of defeat.
Since she was very far from being a model young person, Hilary’s manifest anger was not displeasing. She was going to marry him—but only at her own time, and upon her own conditions. So far, there was no engagement—she had fenced and played with him beautifully all through the last three months. He had no right whatever to be nasty about Billy; of course, if it were some grown-up body, Adair for example, there might be a color of reason for his wrath. He ought to understand that Billy was, in a way, her guest—also a person to whom she owed something in the way of hospitality. What provoked her most was knowing that Hilary was less jealous than ashamed—ashamed to have her thus openly countenance anybody who wore Billy’s clothes. She was all the angrier for her own moment of snobbishness—men ought to be above such paltry things, she reasoned; anyway, she was bound to stand by Billy to the inevitably bitter end.
The start was tedious. Again and again the line of rainbow jackets drew taut across the course, only to break and tangle, and at last dissolve into its original gaudy units. Billy sighed as he watched it, then smiled shyly, and drew a long breath, saying in Allys’ ear: “I hate to win except right square out.”
“I don’t understand,” Allys returned.
Billy looked at her in surprise.
“Don’t you see—the favorites have got so much on their backs, the longer they wheel and turn, the more they take out of themselves?” he asked. “I’ll bet they are frettin’ like everything, too. See there! One of them chestnut-sorrels—can’t tell whether it’s Aramis or Aldegonde—is cuttin’ up high didoes. And the Heathflower thing standin’ like a little lamb——”
“She may be standing there when the race is over,” Hilary interrupted.
Billy did not put down his glass, but said over his shoulder: “Oh, I reckon Tim can stop her before she gets that far around. Don’t know, though—if she feels like runnin’ she’s a handful. And this is one of the days—I know, because she looks as though she couldn’t beat a funeral.”
Allys pressed Billy’s arm—it was all she could do to show her enjoyment of the way he had turned things. Hilary bent toward her, saying, with a hard smile: “You seem to be on Mr. Wickliffe’s side—I wonder will you back his judgment?”
“Maybe so,” Allys said, without turning her head. “That is, if you care to make it anything worth while. I’m not quite sure which I’d like best—a winter in Paris or a pearl necklace—and I know I shan’t ever get them at bridge—I have no luck at all.”