As the horses crossed the wire and the pandemonium of the stand fell away, George Steele stepped forward to present his guest. "This is Mr. Robert Saxon," he announced. "He will paint the portraits of you girls almost as beautiful as you really are.... It's as far as mere art can go." Saxon stood a trifle abashed at the form of presentation as the group turned to greet him. Something in the distance had caught Duska Filson's imagination-brimming eyes. She was sitting with her back turned, and did not hear Steele's approach nor turn with the others. Saxon's casually critical glance passed rapidly over the almost too flawless beauty of the Preston sisters and the flower-like charm of little Miss Buford, then fell on a slender girl in a simple pongee gown and a soft, wide-brimmed Panama hat. Under the hat-brim, he caught the glimpse of an ear that might have been fashioned by a jeweler and a curling tendril of brown hair. If Saxon had indeed been the timorous man Bellton intimated, the glimpse would have thrown him into panic. As it was, he showed no sign of alarm. His presentation as a celebrity had focused attention upon him in a manner momentarily embarrassing. He found a subtle pleasure in the thought that it had not called this girl's eyes from whatever occupied them out beyond the palings. Saxon disliked the ordinary. His canvases and his enthusiasms were alike those of the individualist. "Duska," laughed Miss Buford, "come back from your dreams, and be introduced to Mr. Saxon." The painter acknowledged a moment of suspense. What would be her attitude when she recognized the man who had stared at her down by the paddock fence? The girl turned. Except himself, no one saw the momentary flash of amused surprise in her eyes, the quick change from grave blue to flashing violet and back again to grave blue. To the man, the swiftly shifting light of it seemed to say: "You are at my mercy; whatever liberality you receive is at the gift and pleasure of my generosity." "I beg your pardon," she said simply, extending her hand. "I was just thinking--" she paused to laugh frankly, and it was the music of the laugh that most impressed Saxon--"I hardly know what I was thinking." He dropped with a sense of privileged good-fortune into the vacant chair at her side. With just a hint of mischief riffling her eyes, but utter artlessness in her voice, she regarded him questioningly. "I wonder if we have not met somewhere before? It seems to me----" "Often," he asserted. "I think it was in Babylon first, perhaps. And you were a girl in Macedon when I was a spearman in the army of Alexander." She sat as reflective and grave as though she were searching her recollections of Babylon and Macedon for a chance acquaintance, but under the gravity was a repressed sparkle of mischievous delight. After a moment, he demanded brazenly: "Would you mind telling me which colt won that first race?" CHAPTER II