"Because it is my business to see things before they occur. Miss Austen----" "I never mentioned her," Verelst heatedly exclaimed. "You have no right to----" "I admit it. But because of Lennox the whole matter has preoccupied me and quite as much, I daresay, as it has distressed you." "I don't see at all what you have to do with it." "Perhaps not. But preoccupation may lead to crystal-gazing. Now I will wager a red pippin that I can tell what you said at the steeplechase to the steeplestakes. You asked after his father." Verelst stared. A man of the world and, as such, at his ease in any circumstances, none the less he was startled. "How in God's name did you get that?" "It is very simple. Five minutes ago his father sailed by. You made a remark about him. The remark suggested a train of thought which landed you at the racecourse where you saw, or intimated that you saw, the steeplestakes. But what visible sweepstakes are there except M. P.'s son? You and M. P. are friends. It is only natural that you should ask about him." Verelst turned uneasily. "I don't yet see how you got it. The only thing I said is that I heard he was dying." "And five minutes ago you exclaimed at his resurrection. There is a discrepancy there that is very suggestive." "It is none of my making then." "It is none the less suggestive. The death-bed was invented." "M. P. may have recovered." "Yes, men of his age make a practice of jumping into their death-bed and then jumping out. It is good for them. It keeps them in training." "Oh, rubbish!" Verelst resentfully exclaimed. "No," Jones pursued. "The story was invented and the invention had a reason. If you like, you may ask what it is." "You seem to be very good at invention yourself. I shall ask nothing of the kind." "But you would like to know and I will tell you. It was invented to delay a possible announcement. It could have had no other object." "I said nothing of any announcement," Verelst angrily protested. "What announcement are you talking about?" "The heading of the filly for the sweepstakes. The expression--very graphic by the way--is your own." "Graphic or not I wish you would drop it. Besides----" "Besides what?" "Why, confound it, admitting the engagement, which I ought not to admit for it is not out yet, why should he play for delay?" "Ha!" exclaimed Jones, whom the spectacle of Paliser and Cassy sailing up the Riverside had supplied with an impression or two. "I thought I would interest you. He played for delay because he feared that if it were known, a pitcher of ice-water might come dashing over it." "Why do you say that?" asked Verelst, eager and anxious enough for a spoke--if spoke there could be--to shove in a certain lady's wheels. "Given the man and the deduction is easy." The spoke was receding. Verelst, swallowing his disappointment, retorted: "Incoherence is easy too."