"Go on, Vanity Girl! Go on!" "Go on, you blasted favorite!" "She's swishing her tail." "No, she's not. That's ... yes, it's her. Vanity Girl! Vanity Girl!" "Go on, Vanity Girl!" The roaring died down to a suppressed murmur of agitation. "What's the matter with the favorite?" "O'Hara's flogging her along." The horses flashed past the stand with the black, white and purple of Clarehaven twinkling in the ruck like a setting star. "Tony!" Dorothy screamed. "She's beaten!" "Oh well," said the owner, "don't make such a noise about it." He was smiling a foolish, fixed smile, but he let his glasses drop from his hands on the toes of a lady close by. "I'm very sorry, ma'am," said Tony, raising his hat. "I hope I didn't hurt you." The injured lady glared at him; it was her first Derby, and perhaps she did not realize that it mattered who won or lost. "Come on, Doodles," said Tony. "Home. For God's sake, let's get home." He would not wait to hear any explanation of the filly's defeat, but pushed his way savagely through the crowd to find the car. "Gorblime!" a ragged vender of unauthorized race-cards was ejaculating near the garage. "Gor strike me blurry well pink! She'd make a blurry tortoise crick his blurry neck looking round to see why she was dawdling behind. Race-horse? Why, I reckon a keb-horse could give her three stone and win in a blurry canter, I do. Vanity Girl? Vanity Bitch, that's what she ought to have been called." VII The news of the defeat had already reached Halfmoon Street, and Galloway inclined his head when they passed quickly from the car into the hall of the flats, as if his patrons were returning from a funeral. "We must telephone round to the Carlton to say that the dinner is off," said Tony; even that small action he left to his wife, himself sitting for the rest of the evening mute of speech, but drumming upon the table with his fingers or sometimes tambourinating upon an ash-tray. His dinner consisted of anchovy sandwiches washed down by brandy. There was no word from Houston, and Dorothy supposed that he was waiting to hear from her. "Going! Going! Clare! Clare! Clare!" The auctioneer's hammer seemed to be striking her temples, and, passing her hand over her forehead, she realized that it was only Tony who was drumming upon the table or tambourinating upon the ash-tray. She went to bed before he did and, lying awake in the rosy light of the reading-lamp, she wondered if, perhaps, he would try to forget this day in her arms, half hoped he would, and picked up the hand-mirror beside her bed to see how she was looking. He must have sat up drinking till very late--she had fallen asleep and did not hear him come to bed--and in the morning his eyes were bloodshot, his razor tremulous.