red for nine, and
he's got to get a new tire on."

"Where are we going?" said Lyveden.

"First meet of the season," said George. "I forgot to tell you.
Buck's Folly, the Bumbles think, but they're not certain. Deuce of a
job for me, I tell you. Everybody drives anywhere and anyhow. You're
backed into, you're always being called on to stop your engine, you're
expected to be able to turn in a six-foot lane and to manoeuvre on a
marsh as if it was wood pavement. To do any good, you want something
between a gyroscope and a Tank. A car's useless."

"Stacks of people, obviously," said Anthony.

"Unfortunately, yes. Hardened as I am, I'm not looking forward to that
side. I suppose you hunted--in the old days."

Anthony nodded.

"At Oxford, and sometimes with the Blackmore Vale. My uncle had a
house in Dorset."

"Ah! We used to do a bit with the Pytchley before--before the War."

For a moment nobody spoke.

One and all they had stumbled into the closet of Memory. Pictures of
dead days stared at them--days when they had come and gone as they
pleased, before there had been a new earth and, seemingly, a new
heaven. Old sounds rang in their wistful ears, forgotten scents came
floating out of the darkness.... The closet grew into a gallery....

"Good night," said Betty quietly. "Don't sit up late."

She slipped out of the room.

It was a tired face that George Alison raised to Anthony.

"Thank your stars," he said jerkily, "that you aren't married. I don't
matter. I don't mean I like service, but I'm well enough off. But
Bet--poor Bet. Think what her life should be, and then look at what it
is. And her father's worth half a million. He cut her off when she
married me. I had enough for two then, so it didn't much matter. But
now.... She's wonderful--perfectly marvellous, but--it's hard to see
her hands getting rough, man. Very hard. Her hands...."

Anthony crossed the room and touched him upon the shoulder.

"If I were married," he said, "I should feel just the same. And then
there'd be two fools instead of one. My dear fellow, if Betty
regretted her bargain, then she'd need your sympathy. As it is, so
long as she's got you, d'you think she cares whether she wears sables
or an apron?"

"But you saw how she dried up just now."

"Shall I tell you why?" said Anthony.

"Why?"

"Because to-morrow morning you're going to a meet in blue, and she's
sorry it can't be pink."

The two finis