et me ride for you?"

Nothing the Prince could have said would have astonished the little
company more. Somerfield came to a standstill in the middle of the room,
with a cup of tea in one hand and a plate of ham in the other.

"You!" Lady Grace exclaimed.

"Do you really mean it, Prince?" Penelope cried.

"Well, why not?" he asked, himself, in turn, somewhat surprised. "If I
am eligible, and Lady Grace chooses, it seems to me very simple."

"But," the Duke intervened, "I did not know--we did not know that you
were a sportsman, Prince."

"A sportsman?" the Prince repeated a little doubtfully. "Perhaps I
am not that according to your point of view, but when it comes to a
question of riding, why, that is easy enough."

"Have you ever ridden in a steeplechase?" Somerfield asked him.

"Never in my life," the Prince declared. "Frankly, I do not know what it
is."

"There are jumps, for one thing," Somerfield continued,--"pretty stiff
affairs, too."

"If Lady Grace's mare is a hunter," the Prince remarked, "she can
probably jump them."

"The question is whether--" Somerfield began, and stopped short.

The Prince looked up.

"Yes?" he asked.

Somerfield hesitated to complete his sentence, and the Duke once more
intervened.

"What Somerfield was thinking, my dear Prince," he said, "was that a
steeplechase course, as they ride in this country, needs some knowing.
You have never been on my daughter's mare before."

The Prince smiled.

"So far as I am concerned," he said, "that is of no account. There was
a day at Mukden--I do not like to talk of it, but it comes back to
me--when I rode twelve different horses in twenty-four hours, but
perhaps," he added, turning to Lady Grace, "you would not care to trust
your horse with one who is a stranger to your--what is it you call
them?--steeplechases."

"On the contrary, Prince," Lady Grace exclaimed, "you shall ride her,
and I am going to back you for all I am worth."

Bransome, who was also in riding clothes, although he was not taking
part in the steeplechases himself, glanced at the clock.

"You are running it rather fine," he said. "You'll scarcely have time to
hack round the course."

"Some one must explain it to me," the Prince said. "I need only to be
told where to go. If there is no time for that, I must stay with the
other horses until the finish. There is a flat finish perhaps?"

"About three hundred yards," the Duke answered.

"Have you any riding