At the bench he put the foil down and, getting a cigarette from his coat, lighted it.
Springingly Le Hillel approached. He had with him the long green bag in which now was the other foil.
“You are wounded!” he exclaimed.
Welden, expelling a puff of smoke into the damp, sweet air, stared at him.
“I never was better in my life.”
“But look at yourself.”
Welden did look. Beneath his left arm his shirt was red. He laughed.
“That comes from the foil, from my foil. Here, take it and put it with the other one.”
In a moment he had his coat on, his collar and neckcloth readjusted.
“Where is my stick?” he asked.
“Your stick? In the motor probably. Shall we go?”
But now Louradour, detaching himself from the others, advanced. He looked at Welden.
“Monsieur, I may compliment you and reassure you also. M. de Mal—”
“Is he alive?” Welden, strangling an oath, threw out.
Louradour, pressing together a thumb and forefinger, exhibited them.
“By that much! The carotid artery just escaped. Allons! So much the better. In no time, in three weeks, he will be on his feet.”
Silently Welden cursed. But Louradour’s thumb and forefinger had separated, a hand was extended which Welden shook, and then, with Le Hillel, he passed on through the slowly opening doors to the purring car without.
“There’s your stick,” said Le Hillel as they reached it.
Welden looked at the sky. “It’s raining,” he announced.
“What do you care?” said Le Hillel as both got into the machine and he called: “Rue de la Paix.”
“Personally, not a rap,” Welden answered. “But I race today at Chantilly. If it keeps on it may interfere with the others.”
Le Hillel considered him admiringly. “Gourmand!” he cried. “This morning you nearly killed a man, this afternoon you will nearly kill a horse. That’s fine, very fine.”
Welden shrugged his shoulders. To change the subject he asked: “What became of the little chap?”
“Meyer! Good Lord! I forgot the poor devil. After I drop you, I’ll go back for him. By the way, his fee is fifty francs. Malakoff’s man will come higher. Did you notice that he was decorated? That means a hundred.”
“Yes, confound it; and he’ll earn it. I thought I had spared him that. If I had known in time I believe I would have finished his client as he lay there.”
Le Hillel laughed. “No, you wouldn’t, and, anyway, we would not have let you. Besides, why be so bloodthirsty? You fought like a god, now you will ride like a demon. I would give a red pippin to see you. By George! I would give two of them, only—”
“Only what?”
With a little modest air Le Hillel pulled at his cuff.
“A lady is to lunch with me.”
“Here’s the fifty,” said Welden, who meanwhile had got the money out.
Le Hillel pocketed it. “Shall I see you tomorrow?”
There are morrows that never dawn. What is more notable, there are men who know they will not. But Welden nodded and shortly, when the car stopped again at his hotel, he thanked Le Hillel, who whirled away.
IX
The Race
After one blue brief moment, the forenoon died, suffocated with clouds. The agony of the day melted into rain. The drops, thin and hurried, fell in sheets, draping the trees with humid fringes, pouring their melancholy on Chantilly’s sandy soil and, as Welden, in breeches and boots, drove up from the station, they added a dreariness of their own to the dreariness that was his.
To greet him came the pungent odour of stables, the clean smell of wet turf. He had too a glimpse of dripping ostlers, the vista of a vacant lawn, of a miniature tribune and of a course, punctuated by fences that circled the grounds. But, in lieu of the careless women, the careful men, the line of drags, carriages and cars that ordinarily would have been there, there was but gloom. Instead of clattering hoofs, ripples of laughter and mounting cries, there was silence and the falling rain.
At the perron of a gaunt, grey house, ugly and comfortable, the cab stopped. As Welden got out, there flew up a covered motor from which Cantire and another man alighted.
Cantire, like Welden, was in riding dress.
“Hello!” he cried. “Rather rotten, isn’t it?” Indicating his companion he added: “You know Lord Ferrers?”
“Met you at Melton,” said the latter, advancing toward Welden, his hand outstretched.
He was tall, slim, very fair. He wore a monocle and spoke with a slight stutter.
Welden, recalling some incident, mentioned it and both laughed. Meanwhile the door opened. All three passed into a hall where immediately de Dol appeared.
“But!” the Frenchman, in French, exclaimed. “What good wind brings you! You received my dispatch?” he continued, looking as he spoke from Welden’s boots to Cantire’s breeches. “The race is postponed. Kara Saraguine and Aquaviva telegraphed yesterday asking me to put it off. Thinking you would agree I wired you both at Deauville.”
“To the Villa Portugaise?” said Cantire. “It’s closed. The duchess chucked the whole thing. Why, I haven’t an idea. Have you?” he asked, turning to Welden.
“Not the faintest.”
“Of course not. How should you? I remember now, you went up to Paris the day before. There must have been the deuce of a row. Malakoff took the first train yesterday. Aquaviva and Saraguine went with him, I believe, but the rest of us straggled on at noon.”
“You were saying?” intervened de Dol, whom the conversation, carried on in English, had left in the dark. “But, I pray you, come this way.”
Moving aside he motioned them into a room hung with etchings and photographs of sporting scenes and horses. There was a table there, a divan, several straight-backed chairs and the frame of a horse, wooden and articulated.
“You were saying?” he repeated.
Cantire, in French, summarised the matter for him.
De Dol raised his hands. “But! It is unbelievable! There, one
