But Jack Treves, behind him, scrambled to his feet. His lip was cut and the blood was trickling down his chin. There was blood in his mouth too, and he spat it out as once more a volume of oaths escaped him. "D---- you, Mostyn Clithero!" he cried, safely now, for the object of his hatred was well out of ear-shot. "You haven't downed me for nothing, I can tell you that. I'll be even with you some day, you mark my words!" CHAPTER XV. MOSTYN FACES DEFEAT. "Pierce, old man, I'm afraid we are going to be beaten." Mostyn pushed his chair back from the dinner table, lit a cigarette and disconsolately watched the little rings of smoke which he blew in quick succession from his lips. The two friends were seated in the dining-room of the Grange, and they had just partaken of a good dinner, which had been well served up by a quiet man-servant, who had been in Mostyn's service for the last eight months. The winter, following a series of reverses, had come and gone, and now, though the prescribed year had nearly elapsed, Mostyn found himself apparently as far as ever from successfully carrying out the terms of his bequest. On the following day the Two Thousand Guineas would be run, then there was the Thousand; after that there remained the Derby and the Oaks--and that was all. Pierce stared straight at the wine-glass which he had just filled with fine old port, of which Mostyn had found a good supply in his cellar. He had little to say by way of comfort. "I am afraid Asmodeus will go down, like the rest of them," he muttered. "He hasn't an earthly chance against Don Quixote. And then there's Bouncing Boy." "Bouncing Boy won't win either," commented Mostyn. He was very proficient in racing by now, an excellent judge of winning form. He had formulated quite a theory in his own mind of horses for courses, but whenever he tried to buy a good horse that had already won a big handicap he was always met by difficulties in the way of refusal to sell. "Don Quixote will win, and win easily. Asmodeus may be second, but what's the use of that to me?" he added. "I'm sick of horses that are placed second." Herein, indeed, was disclosed much of the irony of the whole position. Three times in quick succession on the flat Mostyn's horses had been accorded the second place, which was palpably no use to him whatever. The Lincolnshire, the Chester Cup, and the City and Suburban--in all three of these races Mostyn's horses had come in second. "We've done our best," commented Pierce, after a moment's pause; "at least there's that to be said. But it was too hard a task, Mostyn: Anthony Royce made it too stiff for you."