Silver stared out of the window.

“But will she?”

The old man messed with his papers.

“She mayn’t for me,” he mumbled.  “She might for someone—­to help him out of a hole.  I’ll try her anyway.  If she will I’ll put a thousand on myself.”

* * * * *

An hour later Silver was smoking a cigarette in the darkness of the wainscoted dining room, when the door burst open.

Boy came in upon him swift and radiant.  She was in her blue skirt and blouse again, and her hair was like a halo against the dark wainscoting.  The glory of the gallop was still upon her.

He rose to her, challenged and challenging.

She crossed the room to him, and stood with her hand on the mantelpiece.  She did not laugh, she did not even smile, but there was in her the deep and quiet ecstasy that causes the thorn to blossom in beauty after a winter of reserve.  It seemed to him that she was swaying as a rose sways in a gale, yet anchored always to the earth in perfect self-possession.

As always, she came straight to the point.

“Do you want me to ride him in the National?” she asked.

“I don’t mind,” he answered nonchalantly.

“Have you backed him?”

“Not yet.”

“Are you going to?”

“I might—­if I can get a hundred thousand to a thousand about him.”

Her gray eyes searched him.  Not a corner of him but her questioning spirit ransacked it.

“How much money have you got left?”

“When all’s squared? a few thousand, I believe.”

She looked into the fire, one little foot poised on the fender.  He was provoking her.  She felt it.

“I could just about win on him,” she said.  “I think.”

“I’m not so sure,” he answered.

She became defiant in a flash.

“One thing,” she said, “I’m sure nobody else could.”

He followed up his advantage deliberately.

“I’m not so sure,” he said.

Her eyes sparkled frostily.

She understood.

He was furious because her father had spoken to her; resentful that in her hands should be the winning for him of a potential fortune.

She would show him.

“I might think of riding him perhaps,” she said slowly, “on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“That you don’t bet on him.”

He rolled off into deep, ironical laughter.

“Done with you!” he cried, holding out his hand.

She brushed it aside.

“What I said was that I might think of it,” she said, and made for the door.

He did not pursue.

“Oh, do!” he cried lazily.  “Do!”

“I shall see,” she answered.  “I might and I might not.  Probably the latter.”

She went out with firm lips.

“I see what it is!” he cried after her, still ironical.