The girl turned. Except himself, no one saw the momentary flash of
amused surprise in her eyes, the quick change from grave blue to
flashing violet and back again to grave blue. To the man, the swiftly
shifting light of it seemed to say: "You are at my mercy; whatever
liberality you receive is at the gift and pleasure of my generosity."

"I beg your pardon," she said simply, extending her hand. "I was just
thinking--" she paused to laugh frankly, and it was the music of the
laugh that most impressed Saxon--"I hardly know what I was thinking."

He dropped with a sense of privileged good-fortune into the vacant
chair at her side.

With just a hint of mischief riffling her eyes, but utter artlessness
in her voice, she regarded him questioningly.

"I wonder if we have not met somewhere before? It seems to me----"

"Often," he asserted. "I think it was in Babylon first, perhaps. And
you were a girl in Macedon when I was a spearman in the army of
Alexander."

She sat as reflective and grave as though she were searching her
recollections of Babylon and Macedon for a chance acquaintance, but
under the gravity was a repressed sparkle of mischievous delight.

After a moment, he demanded brazenly:

"Would you mind telling me which colt won that first race?"

CHAPTER II

"His career has been pretty much a march of successive triumphs
through the world of art, and he has left the critics only one peg on
which to hang their carping."

Steele spoke with the warmth of enthusiasm. He had succeeded in
capturing Duska for a few minutes of monopoly in the semi-solitude of
the verandah at the back of the club-house. Though he had a hopeless
cause of his own to plead, it was characteristic of him that his first
opportunity should go to the praise of his friend.

"What is that?" The girl found herself unaccountably interested and
ready to assume this stranger's defense even before she knew with what
his critics charged him.

"That he is a copyist," explained the man; "that he is so enamored of
the style of Frederick Marston that his pictures can't shake off the
influence. He is great enough to blaze his own trail--to create his
own school, rather than to follow in the tracks of another. Of
course," he hastened to defend, "that is hardly a valid indictment.
Every master is, at the beginning of his career, strongly affected by
the genius of some greater master. The only mistake lies in following
in the footsteps of one n