week before, so he changed the subject.

"I thought you'd be at the fight," he said. "It was a pretty
spar--interesting all through. Jack Buckler won. Blades practically let
him. Not because he wanted to, but because Solly Blades has got a streak
of softness in his make-up. That's fatal in a fighter. If you've got a
gentle heart, it don't matter how clever you are: you can't take full
advantage of your skill and use the opening when you've won it. Blades
didn't punish Buckler's stupidity, or weakness just when he could have
done it. So he lost, because he gave Jack time to get strong again; and
when Blades in his turn went weak, Buckler got it over and outed him."

"Your heart often robs you of what your head won," said another man in
the bar. "Life's like prize-fighting in that respect. If you don't hit
other people when you can, the time will probably come when they'll hit
you."

It was an ugly philosophy and Raymond, looking within, applied to it
himself. Then he put his own thoughts away.

"And how are the gee-gees?" he asked.

"As a 'gentleman backer,' I can't say I'm going very strong," confessed
Neddy. "On the whole, I think it's a mug's game. Anyway, I shall chuck
it when flat racing comes again. My father's getting restive. I shall
have to do something pretty soon."

Raymond stayed for an hour and was again urged to give a bachelor-supper
before he married; but he declined.

"Shan't chuck away a tenner on a lot of wasters," he said. "Got
something better to do with it."

Several men promised to come to church and see the event, now near at
hand, but he told them that they might be disappointed.

"I'm not too sure about that," he said. "I may put my foot down on that
racket and be married at a registrar's. Anyway church is no certainty.
I've got no use for making a show of my private affairs."

On the way to Miss Ironsyde's he grew moody and gloom settled upon him.
A glimpse of the old free and easy life threw into darker colours the
new existence ahead. He remembered the sentiments of the strange man in
the bar--how weakness is always punished and the heart often robs the
head of victory. His heart was robbing his head of freedom; and that
meant victory also; for what sort of success can life offer to those who
begin it by flinging liberty to the winds? Yes, he had been "bluffing,"
as Neddy declared; and to bluff was foreign to his nature. Nobody was
deceived, for everybody knew the truth, and though