The races played their part. Gore Helmsley, a splendid rider, won easily, cantering in five lengths in front, his long figure looking its best on horseback, his dark face glowed when he rode. Young Knox's horse fell; the boy came in muddy, shaken, sad in mind, because it was a jostle with his rival which had knocked him down. Sybil gathered some gold gaily. Jimmy had put a tenner on for her. With a girl's folly she feasted her eyes on tinsel, turning away from the duller mint of hall-marked gold. Here the curtains might fall on a tragedy, fall hurriedly, for the chief actress would have to smile and call it comedy to her audience if she was ever to appear again on Society's stage. Sybil came laughing to one of the smaller sitting-rooms that evening, a room warm, softly lighted, one ordered as one chose at Coombe Regis. She was having tea then with Gore Helmsley. "No one will look for us here," he had said as he rang the bell. "Let's have a quiet half-hour. Talk to me, little pal, I'm tired." Over the indifferent tea, poured out of a gilt teapot, Sybil smiled gaily, held out her day's winnings--twenty pounds. "See, I owe you money for bridge, for two nights. Take it. I hope there's enough to pay. I did play stupidly." Jimmie pushed back the pile of gold. "My dear, you lost eighty pounds. What does it matter--that can stand over. I paid the Cavendish for you; she's a cat and would talk." Sybil cried out, frightened and astonished. Eighty pounds! and besides that she had played in a lady's four and lost another ten. Her mother was not rich; she could not pay easily. "Keep your pennies," he mocked in lordly tones. "Some day you'll pay me. I am glad to help a little pal." Jimmie meant the payment to be a high one, with interest. He was a merciless human hawk, poising long, swift to strike at the last. "We played sixpennies, you see." "I never dreamt," Sybil faltered; "I thought it was pennies here." When you owe a man eighty pounds, when he has paid rather than have you cornered, it would be churlish to spring aside, a prude, if he kisses you softly before you part. If he pulls you to the arm of his chair and keeps you there, holding two small chill hands, it is surely all in good friendship. Sybil went away with some of the careless youth wiped from her fresh face, with trouble and perplexity in her frank eyes; the big dark man fascinated her, knew how to make her feel a little queen, how to bring the hot blood to her cheeks, but to-night she was half afraid. His little pal! She'd cured his headache--been a brick to stay with him. Instead of playing bridge to-night they'd play piquet in a quiet corner, he whispered. "You didn't come to tea." Oliver Knox came straight to Sybil in the hall, his face ill-humoured. "I was watching for you." "No, I was tired," she said, blushing a little. "And Gore Helmsley did not come--our black Adonis, Miss Chauntsey--can't you see through the man?"