“Not I!” Somerfield answered, gorgeous in pink coat and riding breeches.  “My old horse may not be fast, but he can go the course, and I’m none too certain of the others.  Some of those hurdles’ll take a bit of doing.”

“It is a shame,” the Prince remarked, “that you should be disappointed, Lady Grace.  Would they let me ride for you?”

Nothing the Prince could have said would have astonished the little company more.  Somerfield came to a standstill in the middle of the room, with a cup of tea in one hand and a plate of ham in the other.

“You!” Lady Grace exclaimed.

“Do you really mean it, Prince?” Penelope cried.

“Well, why not?” he asked, himself, in turn, somewhat surprised.  “If I am eligible, and Lady Grace chooses, it seems to me very simple.”

“But,” the Duke intervened, “I did not know—­we did not know that you were a sportsman, Prince.”

“A sportsman?” the Prince repeated a little doubtfully.  “Perhaps I am not that according to your point of view, but when it comes to a question of riding, why, that is easy enough.”

“Have you ever ridden in a steeplechase?” Somerfield asked him.

“Never in my life,” the Prince declared.  “Frankly, I do not know what it is.”

“There are jumps, for one thing,” Somerfield continued,—­“pretty stiff affairs, too.”

“If Lady Grace’s mare is a hunter,” the Prince remarked, “she can probably jump them.”

“The question is whether—­” Somerfield began, and stopped short.

The Prince looked up.

“Yes?” he asked.

Somerfield hesitated to complete his sentence, and the Duke once more intervened.

“What Somerfield was thinking, my dear Prince,” he said, “was that a steeplechase course, as they ride in this country, needs some knowing.  You have never been on my daughter’s mare before.”

The Prince smiled.

“So far as I am concerned,” he said, “that is of no account.  There was a day at Mukden—­I do not like to talk of it, but it comes back to me—­when I rode twelve different horses in twenty-four hours, but perhaps,” he added, turning to Lady Grace, “you would not care to trust your horse with one who is a stranger to your—­what is it you call them?—­steeplechases.”

“On the contrary, Prince,” Lady Grace exclaimed, “you shall ride her, and I am going to back you for all I am worth.”

Bransome, who was also in riding clothes, although he was not taking part in the steeplechases himself, glanced at the clock.

“You are running it rather fine,” he said.  “You’ll scarcely have time to hack round the course.”

“Some one must explain it to me,” the Prince said.  “I need only to be told where to go.  If there is no time for that, I must stay with the other horses until the finish.  There is a flat finish perhaps?”

“About three hundred yards,” the Duke answered.