“Perhaps we might tell Betty—­I mean when we get back again—­where Josephine and her kittens are?  She was awfully upset last night; almost as upset as I was.  You see, Josephine’s a French cat.  She was brought home—­I mean to England, you know—­by the officer who now wants to marry Betty.”  Timmy uttered these words in a very matter-of-fact voice.  Then, for a moment, he forgot Betty, for the car swerved suddenly.

“The officer who wants to marry Betty?” repeated Radmore.  “I didn’t know there was an officer who wanted to marry Betty.”

“Nobody’s supposed to know,” said Timmy composedly.  “But Mum and I, as well as father, know.  Only a very vulgar sort of girl lets anyone know when someone wants to marry her.  Mr. Barton is so ridiculous about Dolly, following her about and always looking at her, that we all know it, though Mum wonders sometimes if he knows it himself.  But neither Dolly nor Rosamund knows about Betty’s man.  Luckily, they were away when he last came here and saw father.  The first time Betty meant him to send the kitten in a basket from London.  She even gave him the money for Josephine’s fare, but he would give it back to father.  He brought her himself because he wanted to see father, and talk to him about Betty and George.”

“Then he knew George, too?”

“Yes, that’s how he got to know Betty, when she was in France, you know, and why she gave him the kitten to bring home on leave.  He knew all about us, and when father called me into the study to take Josephine, he said:  ‘Is this Timmy?’ And then after that he just went straight on about Betty, as if I wasn’t there.  He said that if he got through, he meant to wait—­he didn’t mind how long, if only Betty would say ‘Yes’ in the end.”

“Has he been here since Betty came home?” asked Radmore abruptly.

Somehow this revelation astonished and discomfited him very much.  It had never occurred to him that Betty might marry.

“No,” said Timmy.  “He has never come again, for he’s in Mesopotamia; but he writes to Betty, and then she writes back to him.  You see he was a friend of George’s—­that makes her like him, I suppose.”

They drove on for a while in silence, and then Timmy enquired, rather anxiously:  “You won’t tell Betty I’ve told you, will you, Godfrey?  I don’t think she wants anyone to know.  He sent me a lovely picture postcard once—­it was to Timmy Tosswill, Esq.—­and then I asked Betty whether she meant to marry him, as he was such a nice sort of man.  She was awfully angry with me for knowing about it, and she began to cry.  So you won’t say anything to her, will you?”

“No, of course I won’t,” said Radmore hastily.

They were now emerging on the wide sweep of down commanding the little old country town which stands to the whole world as the racing capital of England.  To their left, huge and gaunt against the night sky, rose the Grand Stand.