main droite, or sur azur--Pour toi seule_. It's a good
old tradition--a good old name."

She scented his lack of sympathy. "Oh, I'll stand for him, Jimmy. I
know the _pate_, as they say. I know the ring and the tone; and you
must, at my valuation, take him."

"Molly, dear lady, has done the taking." Bulstrode lifted his hat as
the trio came up. "And what, after all, can we--the rest of us do?"

"The rest of them" watched the young couple with mingled emotions: Mary
Falconer with all the romance in her, and in spite of unusual cool
reasonableness she had a feminine share--Jimmy with the sympathy of a
kindly nature, a certain sting of jealousy at the decidedly perfect
completeness of young love, and with a singularly wide-awake practical
common sense for an impulsive gentleman whose pleasure in life is to
pour into people's hands the things they most long for and cannot
without him ever hope to enjoy!

Bulstrode, although owning his share of horse-flesh and a proper number
of automobiles and keeping, for the best part of the time, a yacht out
of commission, was a sport only in a certain sense of the word. The
people who liked him best and who were themselves able to judge, said
he was a "dead game sport," but Jimmy smiled at this and knew that the
human element interested him in life above all, and that he only cared
for amusements as they helped others to enjoy. He was backing
Falconer's horse, although he felt certain the winnings would go to the
Rothschild's gelding. On the afternoon, however, when De Presle-Vaulx
came up to him in the Casino and said: "On what are you going to put
your money, Monsieur?" Bulstrode looked at him thoughtfully. He had
stood by the young man the night before at baccarat and seen him lose
enough to keep a little family of Trouville fisherfolk for a year.

"Are you going to play the races, Marquis?"

"But naturally!" ...

De Presle-Vaulx had an attractive frankness, and his smile
was--Bulstrode understood what a girl would think about it!

"... But of course! One doesn't come to Trouville in _la grande
semaine_ not to play!"

He put his hand cordially on Bulstrode's arm.

"Entre nous," he said, "I don't believe Falconer's horse has a chance
against Rothschild's Grimace. And you?"

"Oh, I shall back Jack Falconer's mare," the older man replied.

The Marquis played with his moustache. "She doesn't stand a show."

Bulstrode was walking slowly down the grand stairc