“I shall have to go up to town this evening,” he said.

Anxious faces gathered about him.

“Oh, don’t do that!” said Harold Jupp.  “We have just got to like you.”

“Yes, wait until to-morrow, my dear boy,” Sir Chichester suggested.  Even Joan Whitworth descended to earth and requested that he should stay.

“It’s awfully kind of you,” stammered Martin.  “But I am afraid that this is very important.”

Lady Splay was practical.

“Hadn’t you better see first?” she asked.

Hillyard, with his thoughts playing swiftly in the future like a rapier, was still standing stock-still with the unopened telegram in his hand.

“Of course,” he said.  “But I know already what it is.”

The anxious little circle closed nearer as he tore open the envelope.  He read: 

     “I have refused the Duke.  Money is cash—­I mean trash. 
     Little one I am yours.—­LINDA SPAVINSKY.”

The telegram had been sent that afternoon from Chichester.

Hillyard gazed around at the serious faces which hemmed him in.  It became a contest as to whose face should hold firm longest.  Joan herself was the first to flee, and she was found rocking to and fro in silent laughter in a corner of the library.  Then Hillyard himself burst into a roar.

“I bought that fairly,” he admitted, and he went up several points in the estimation of them all.

The last day of the races came—­all sunshine and hot summer; lights and shadows chasing across the downs, the black slopes of Charlton forest on the one side, parks and green fields and old brown houses, sloping to the silver Solent, upon the other; and in the centre of the plain, by Bosham water, the spire of Chichester Cathedral piercing the golden air.  Paddock and lawn and the stands were filled until about two in the afternoon.  Then the gaps began to show to those who were concerned to watch.  Especially about the oval railings in the paddock, within which, dainty as cats and with sleek shining skins, the racehorses stepped, the crowd grew thin.  And in a few moments, the word had run round like fire, “The officers had gone.”

Hillyard stood reflecting upon the stupendous fact.  Never had he so bitterly regretted that physical disqualification which banned him from their company.  Never had he so envied Luttrell.  He was in the uttermost depression when a small, brown-gloved hand touched his arm.  He turned and saw Joan Whitworth at his side, her lovely face alive with excitement, her eyes most friendly.  It was hardly at all the Joan he knew.  Joan had courage, but to face Goodwood in the clothes she affected at Rackham Park was beyond it.  From her grey silk stockings and suede shoes to the little smart blue hat which sat so prettily on her hair, she was, as Millicent Splay would have admitted, really dressed.

“There is a real telegram for you,” she said.  She held it out to him enclosed in an envelope which had been already opened.