elighted. "What a daring idea! Who is it? Is it--bless
my soul, it is!"

Katharine Fargo had dropped her lorgnette with an exclamation. She stood
up, her wide eyes fixed on that figure in pure white, with the blood-red
cordon flaunting across his horse's flanks and the single crimson
blossom glowing in his hat.

"The White Knight!" she breathed. "Who is he?"

Judge Chalmers looked round in sudden illumination. "I forgot that you
would be likely to know him," he said. "That is Mr. John Valiant of
Damory Court."

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE KNIGHT OF THE CRIMSON ROSE

The row of horsemen had halted in a curving line before the grand stand,
and now in the silence the herald, holding a parchment scroll, spurred
before each rider in turn, demanding his title. As this was given he
whirled to proclaim it, accompanying each evolution with a blast on his
horn. "Knight of the Golden Spur," "Knight of Castlewood," "Lord of
Brandon," "Westover's Knight," "Knight of the Silver Cross": the names,
fanciful, or those of family estates, fell on John Valiant's ear with a
pungent flavor of medievalism. His eyes, full of the swaying crowd, the
shift and shimmer of light and color, returned again and again to an
alluring spot of blue at one side, which might for him have been the
heart of the whole festal out-of-doors. He started as he became aware
that the rider next him had answered and that the herald had paused
before him.

"Knight of the Crimson Rose!" It sprang to his lips without forethought,
an echo, perhaps, of the improvised sash and the flower in his hat-band,
but the shout of the herald and the trumpet's blare seemed to make the
words fairly bulge with inevitability. And through this struck a sudden
appalled feeling that he had really spoken Shirley's name, and that
every one had heard. He could not see her face, and clutched his lance
fiercely to overcome an insane desire to stoop hideously in his saddle
and peer under the shading hat-brim. Lest he should do this, he fastened
his eyes determinedly on the major, who now proceeded to deliver himself
of the "Charge to the Knights."

The major made an appealing center to the charming picture as he stood
on the green turf, "the glass of fashion and the mold of form," his head
bare, his shock of blond-gray hair thrown back, and one hand thrust
between the buttons of his snowy waistcoat. His rich bass voice rolled
out to the farthest corner of the field:

"Sir Knights!