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maneuvre

euvre as he had successfully carried out with Lady Minster and the Duke.

He edged his way through the people near him and presently stood directly behind her looking down at the tendrils of curling hair that grew about her delicate ears. Once or twice she looked past him as though seeking a friend’s face in the crowd. And once she allowed those splendid eyes of hers to dwell for a moment on him; he received, as it were, the end of a smile that had been thrown to a friend a few yards distant. Effie and her sneers were forgotten. There was now with him only one end in life, and that to know this adorable woman.

He had lived too much in books and dreams to have that ready wit and address which on such occasions might carry a more experienced man to the land of fleeting romance. He and she had assuredly no common acquaintances upon whom to draw. Had he been of her world this had been easy enough, but Effie’s taunt came back to him. What had Meadowbrook to do with Bowlerville?

As he stood sighing at her heels she looked around again; and this time he received the beginning of a smile whose end was caught by a pretty woman passing by. He argued that she must know he was staring at her and thinking about her. And if she resented it she could annihilate him by a look. Presently she clasped her hands behind her back and he stared down at one half-closed hand. Suppose she was holding it thus so that he could slip his card into it! Then he told himself that no society woman would ever do a thing like that. A moment later he remembered the colonel’s lady and Miss O’Grady.

But his desire to know her more than oftset the risk he might win. In his fancy he saw himself horsewhipped by grooms, run off the field to the derision of dukes and the sneers of Long Island sportsmen for insulting a woman of position. In that moment Horace found himself possessed of a certain courage upon which there had never been the

necessity to draw. It was worth the risk, he decided.

CHAPTER IV

As he slipped the engraven card- board into those slim white hands they curled over it and their owner made no movement. The danger of assault had apparently passed away, for while hold- ing the card she had equably answered some question of Colman’s.

Her lack of action was beginning to unnerve him when, at the end of an- other “chukker” she turned about,and looked at him as though suddenly dis- covering an old friend. That radiant smile he had seen wasted on others was now for him alone.

“Surely it's Mr. Blackwell,” she cried. “When did you come?”

He took her hand, prayed that he was not blushing, and said he had ar- rived perhaps an hour before.

“Of course you know Wolfston Col- man?” she remarked.

“By sight only,” he returned easily as he was introduced. He was relieved to find his apprehension that everyone on the field might be watching him was a wrong one. None took the slightest notice.

“What do you think of the Hurling- ham lot” Colman demanded.

Horace had not been listening to the horseman’s critical remarks for noth- ing.

“If our men are not trained as well as they are we shall lose the cup,” he said.

Colman turned to Mrs. Buxton with rather an air of triumph. *“You see? That’s exactly what I said!” In which, of course, he was right.

After a few moments she dismissed Wolfston Colman with a pleasant little nod.

“I shall see you later,” she assured him. “I'm simply dying for some tea.”

And with Horace at her side she walked over the ground to where in their scores motors were parked. Where tea was to be found he did not