There was more than disappointment in her voice. There was a hint of disdain.
Hillyard did not pursue the argument.
"I knew that I had seen you before. I remember where now. You were with Sir Chichester at the first performance of "The Dark Tower." I peeped out behind the curtain of my box and saw you."
Joan"s face relaxed.
"Oh, yes, I was there."
"But----" Hillyard began, and caught himself up. He had been on the point of saying that she had a very different aspect in the stalls of the Rubicon Theatre. But he looked her up and down and held his peace.
Yet what he did subst.i.tute left him in no better case.
"So you have not gone to the races," he said, and once more her lip curled in disdain. She drew herself up to her full height--she was not naturally small, but a good honest piece of English maidenhood.
"Do I look as if I were likely to go to the races?" she asked superbly.
She was dressed in a sort of shapeless flowing gown, saffron in colour, and of a material which, to Hillyard"s inexperienced eye, seemed canvas.
It spread about her on the ground, and it was high at the throat. A broad starched white collar, like an Eton boy"s, surmounted it, and a little black tie was fastened in a bow, and scarves floated untidily around her.
"No, upon my word you do not," cried Hillyard, nettled at last by her haughtiness, and with such a fervour of agreement, that suddenly all her youth rose into Joan Whitworth"s face and got the better of her pose.
She laughed aloud, frankly, deliciously. And her laugh was still rippling about the room when motor-horns hooted upon the drive.
At once the laughter vanished.
"We shall be amongst horses in a minute," she observed with a sigh. "I can smell the stables already," and she retired to her book in the embrasure of the window.
A joyous and noisy company burst into the room. Sir Chichester, with larger mother-of-pearl b.u.t.tons on his fawn-coloured overcoat than ever decorated even a welshing bookmaker on Brighton Downs, led Hillyard up to Lady Splay.
"My wife. Millie, Mr. Hillyard."
Hints of Lady Splay"s pa.s.sion for the last new person had prepared Hillyard for a lady at once gushing and talkative. He was surprised to find himself shaking hands with a pleasant, una.s.suming woman of distinct good looks. Hillyard was presented to Dennis and Miranda Brown, a young couple two years married, and to Mr. Harold Jupp, a man of Hillyard"s age. Harold Jupp was a queer-looking person with a long, thin, brown face, and a straight, wide mouth too close to a small pointed chin.
Harold Jupp carried about with him a very aura of horses. Horses were his only a.n.a.logy; he thought in terms of horses; and perhaps, as a consequence, although he could give no reasons for his judgments upon people, those judgments as a rule were conspicuously sound. Jupp shook hands with Hillyard, and turned to the student at the window.
"Well, Joan, how have you lived without us? Aren"t you bored with your large, beautiful self?"
Joan looked at him with an annihilating glance, and crossed the room to Millie Splay.
"Bored! How could I be? When I have so many priceless wasted hours to make up for!"
"Yes, yes, my dear," said Millie Splay soothingly. "Come and have some tea."
"That"s it, Joan," cried Jupp, unrepressed by the girl"s contempt. "Come and have tea with the barbarians."
Joan addressed herself to Dennis Brown, as one condescending from Olympus.
"I hope you had a good day."
"Awful," Dennis Brown admitted. "We ought to have had five nice wins on form. But they weren"t trying, Joan. The way Camomile was pulled. I expected to see his neck shut up like a concertina."
"Never mind, boys," said Sir Chichester. "You"ll get it back before Friday."
Harold Jupp shook his head doubtfully.
"Never sure about flat-racing. Jumping"s the only thing for the poor and honest backer."
Joan Wentworth looked about her regretfully.
"I understand now why you have all come back so early."
Miranda Brown ran impulsively to her. She was as pretty as a picture, and spoke as a rule in a series of charming explosions. At this moment she was deeply wronged.
"Yes, Joan," she cried. "They would go! And I know that I have backed the winner for the last race."
Dennis Brown contemplated his wife with amazement.
"Miranda, you are crazy," he cried. "He can"t win."
Harold Jupp agreed regretfully.
"He"s a Plater. That"s the truth. A harmless, unnecessary Plater. I sit at the feet of Miranda Brown, Joan, but as regards horses, she doesn"t know salt from sugar."
Miranda looked calmly at her watch.
"He has already won."
Tea was brought in and consumed. At the end of it Dennis Brown observed to Harold Jupp:
"We ought to arrange what we are going to do to-morrow."
Both men rose, and each drew from one pocket a programme of the next day"s events, and from the other a little paper-covered volume called "Form at a Glance." Armed with their paraphernalia, they retired to a table in a window.
"Come and live the higher life with us, Joan," cried Harold Jupp. "What are you reading?"
"Prince Hohenstiel-Schw.a.n.gau, Saviour of Society," Joan returned icily.
But pride burned through the ice, and was audible.
"He sounds just like a Plater," replied Harold Jupp.
Meanwhile Dennis Brown was immersed in his programme.
"The first race is too easy," he announced.
"Yes," said Jupp. "It"s sticking out a foot. Peppercorn."
Dennis Brown stared at his friend.
"Don"t be silly! Simon Jackson will romp home."
Harold Jupp consulted his little brown book.