"Peppercorn ran second to Petronella at Newbury, giving her nine pounds.
Petronella met Simon Jackson at even weights at Newcastle, and Simon Jackson was left in the country. Peppercorn must win."
"Let us hear the names of the others," interrupted Miranda, running up to the table.
Harold Jupp read out the names.
"Smoky Boy, Paper Crown, House on Fire, Jemima Puddleduck----" and Miranda clapped her hands.
"Jemima Puddleduck"s going to win."
Both the young men stared at her, then both plunged their noses into their books.
"Jemima Puddleduck," Dennis Brown read, "out of Side Springs, by the Quack."
"Oh, what a pedigree!" cried Miranda. "She must win."
Jupp wrinkled his forehead.
"But she"s done nothing. Why must she win?" asked Dennis.
Miranda shrugged her shoulders at the ineffable stupidity of the young man with whom she was linked.
"Listen to her name! Jemima Puddleduck! She can"t lose!"
Both the young men dropped their books and gazed at one another hopelessly. Here was the whole scientific business of spotting winners, through research into pedigrees, weights, records, the favourite distances and race courses of this or that runner, so completely disregarded that racing might really be a matter of chance.
"I"ll tell you, Miranda," said Harold Jupp. "Jemima Puddleduck"s a Plater."
The awful condemnation had no sooner been p.r.o.nounced than the butler, with his attendant footman, appeared to remove the tea.
"We have just heard over the telephone, sir," he said to Sir Chichester, "the winner of the last race."
"Oh!" cried Miranda breathlessly. "Which was it?"
"Chewing Gum."
Miranda swept round to her husband, radiant. "There, what did I tell you? Chewing Gum. What were the odds, Harper?" She turned again to the butler. "Oh, you do know, don"t you?"
"Yes, madam, twelve to one. They say he rolled home."
Miranda Brown jumped in the air.
"Oh, I have won a hundred and twenty pounds."
Harold Jupp was sympathetic and consolatory.
"Of course it"s a mistake, Miranda. I am awfully sorry! Chewing Gum ran nowhere to Earthly Paradise in the Newberry Stakes this year, and Earthly Paradise, all out to win, was beaten a month ago by seven lengths at Warwick, by Rollicking Lady. And Rollicking Lady was in this race too. So you see it"s impossible. Chewing Gum"s a Plater."
Miranda wrung her hands.
"But, Harold, he _did_ win; didn"t he, Harper?"
"There"s no doubt about it, madam," replied the butler with dignity. "I "av verified the hinformation from other sources."
He left the two experts blinking. Dennis was the first to recover from the blow.
"What on earth made you back him, Miranda?"
Miranda sailed to the side of Joan Whitworth.
"You are both of you so very unpleasant that I am seriously inclined not to tell you. But I always back horses with the names of things to eat."
The two scientists were dumb. They stared open-mouthed. Somewhere, it seemed, a religion tottered upon its foundations. Sacrilege itself could hardly have gone further than Miranda Brown had gone.
"But--but," Harold Jupp stammered feebly, "you don"t _eat_ chewing gum."
Miranda flattened him out with a question.
"What becomes of it, then?" and there was no answer. But Miranda was not content with her triumph. She must needs carry the war unwisely into the enemy"s camp.
"After all, what in the world can have possessed you, Dennis, to back a silly old mare like Barmaid?"
Dennis Brown saw his opportunity.
"I always back horses with the names of things to kiss," he declared.
Jupp laughed aloud; Sir Chichester chuckled; Miranda looked as haughty as good-humour and a dainty personality enabled her to do.
"Vulgar, don"t you think?" she asked of Joan. "But racing men _are_ vulgar. Oh, Joan! have you thought out your book to-day? Can you now begin to write it? Will you write it in the window, with the South Downs in front of your eyes? Oh, it"ll be wonderful!"
"What ho!" cried Mr. Jupp. "Miranda has joined the highbrows."
Dennis Brown was too seriously occupied to waste his time upon Miranda"s enthusiasms.
"It"s a pity we can"t get the evening papers," he said gloomily. "I should dearly like to see the London forecasts for to-morrow."
"I brought some evening papers down with me," said Hillyard, and "Did you?" cried Sir Chichester, and his eyes flashed with interest. But Harold Jupp was already out of the room. He came back from the hall with a bundle of newspapers in his hands, pink and white and yellow and green. He carried them all relentlessly past Sir Chichester to the table in the window. Sir Chichester to a newspaper, was a needle to a magnet; and while Dennis Brown read out the selections for the morrow"s races of "The Man of Iron" in the _Evening Patriot_, and "Hitchy Koo" in _The Lamppost_, Sir Chichester edged nearer and nearer.
Lady Splay invited Hillyard to play croquet with her in the garden; and half-way through the game Hillyard approached the question which troubled him.
"I was wondering whether I should meet Mrs. Croyle here."
Millicent Splay drove her ball before she answered, and missed her hoop.
"What a bore!" she cried. "Now I shall have to come back again. I didn"t know that you had met Stella."
"I met her only once. I liked her."