hirsted for the result of the competition.

Controlling himself, submissively he asked her to telephone for him, and
she agreed in a delightfully agreeable voice. She seemed to know the
entire geography of the Hippodrome. She secured a telephone-cabin in a
very business-like manner. As she entered the cabin she said to George:

"I'll ask them if a telegram has come, and if it has I'll ask them to
open it and read it to me, or spell it--of course it'll be in
English.... Eh?"

Through the half-open door of the cabin he watched her, and listened.
She rapidly turned over the foul and torn pages of the telephone-book
with her thumb. She spoke into the instrument very clearly, curtly, and
authoritatively. George could translate in his mind what she said--his
great resolve to learn French had carried him so far.

"On the part of Monsieur Cannon, one of your clients, Monsieur Cannon of
London. Has there arrived a telegram for him?"

She waited. The squalor of the public box increased the effect of her
young and proud stylishness and of her perfume. George waited, humbled
by her superior skill in the arts of life, and saying anxiously to
himself: "Perhaps in a moment I shall know the result," almost
trembling.

She hung up the instrument, and, with a glance at George, shook her
head.

"There isn't anything," she murmured.

He said:

"It's very queer, isn't it? However..."

As they emerged from the arcana of the grand stand, Lois was stopped by
a tall, rather handsome Jew, who, saluting her with what George esteemed
to be French exaggeration of gesture, nevertheless addressed her in a
confidential tone in English. George, having with British restraint
acknowledged the salute, stood aside, and gazed discreetly away from the
pair. He could not hear what was being said. After several minutes Lois
rejoined George, and they went back into the crowds and the sun. She did
not speak. She did not utter one word. Only, when the numbers went up
for a certain race, she remarked:

"This is the Prix du Cadran. It's the principal race of the afternoon."

And when that was over, amid cheering that ran about the field like fire
through dried bush, she added:

"I think I ought to go back now. I told the chauffeur to be here after
the Prix du Cadran. What time is it exactly?"

They sat side by side in the long, open car, facing the chauffeur's
creaseless back. After passing the Cascade, the car swerved into the
Allee de Longchamps