“They do interest me, and that is sufficient. If you have not enough acumen to guess the reason, I don’t think much of your intellectual foresight,” and she laughed again in her deep contralto voice. Meanwhile Jessica Mervyn-Robertson and Cora Hartsilver met often at receptions, dances and other social functions, and, though outwardly friendly, each knew the other secretly hated her. At a lunch party in Mayfair during the first days of June there had been talk about Ascot, and Jessica had mentioned casually that on Gold Cup Day fortune invariably favored her. Twice, she said, she had found herself at the end of the day much richer than in the morning, “and in other ways,” she added, “Gold Cup Day has helped me towards happiness.” “Would it be too much to inquire what the other ways were?” Cora, who sat near her at the angle of the table, said lightly. “I can’t see how good fortune could come to anybody on a race day except through the actual racing unless----” “Unless what?” Jessica asked quickly, with an odd look, as Cora checked herself. “Well, one might happen to meet somebody whom afterwards one might come to like very much,” Cora replied with a far-away look. One or two people, happening to remember they had heard somewhere that Jessica had first become acquainted with Aloysius Stapleton at an Ascot meeting, smiled. “I agree,” Jessica said with exaggerated indifference. “But the same thing might happen to anybody anywhere--say at lunch at the Ritz, or at one of my own musical At Homes, or at----” She was interrupted by one of the men at the end of the table who, not seeing she was engaged in conversation, inquired if she would make one of the party he meant to drive down to Ascot on his coach. “It is rather short notice, Mrs. Robertson,” he added, “but until this morning I had not actually decided to go down. Do say ‘Yes’ if you have not made other arrangements.” “I shall be delighted to come,” she answered after a moment’s hesitation. “I suppose you mean Gold Cup Day?” “Yes, Gold Cup Day. That is good of you. Then it is settled?” “Lucky again!” Cora Hartsilver said with a curious laugh. “I shall end by becoming superstitious myself. Will you give me all the winners on Gold Cup Day, Jessica?” “Oh, then you will be there?” “If I am lucky, too.” “And I suppose Yootha with you? Oh! but I needn’t ask,” she ended with a malicious little laugh. The luncheon came to an end just then, which was as well, for the two women were each awaiting an opportunity to deal the other metaphorically a blow between the eyes. For weeks past their hatred had been smoldering. To-day it had come near to bursting into flame. When Cora met Yootha that afternoon, she at once told her of her passage-of-arms at lunch with Jessica Robertson, and of Jessica’s hardly veiled sneer at their friendship.