So Sunday came, and, with it, breakfast at Armenonville with two fellow officers, and the growing exhilaration of the approaching race. Eugène was in his gayest mood--for was not Vivandière not only the winner of last year's Steeple Chase, but to-day in better form than she had ever been? But he allowed his good spirits to be touched, now and again, with a gentle, pleasurable melancholy, as the violins of the tziganes glided into the long, languorous swell of the Valse Bleue, and his handsome eyes clouded thoughtfully, and his fine mouth drooped, so that Gaston Cavaignac rallied him joyously upon the new affair, which alone could account for such tristesse. It lent an added zest, this. Eugène smiled, and was glad that in his denial of the charge rang so little of conviction. The first race had been already run, as the three officers slipped through the main entrance of Auteuil, and made their way across the pesage, and past the betting booths, to the grass oval around which the horses, in charge of stable lads, were slowly circling. It was one of May's clearest and most brilliant afternoons. The gravel pathways and stretches of vivid turf were thronged with the best known men and women of the two great Parisian worlds of sport and fashion, and the air rang with gay gossip and spirited discussion. But Eugène had ears for none of this, and eyes but for two things,--Vivandière, blanketed, and swinging around the oval with her long, sure stride, and Natalie Tournadour, in a delicious gown of soft blue, standing at the side of Vieux César. Life, at that moment, was good to live. The chasseur drew a quick breath of pleased surprise. She was there, then, to see him win. He might have known! A mixture of sudden, unfamiliar embarrassment and boyish vanity caused him to avoid her eye as he made a turn of the oval, consulting with his stable lad about the mare's condition; but he held himself very straight, and was pleasantly conscious that his tunic was new, and his boots a veritable triumph of Coquillot's. When he went back to his companions his eyes were glowing. "Content?" asked Cavaignac. "Je te crois, mon vieux!" he answered. "One never can say, but it is certain that no one has a better chance. She is perfection!" "There is the white," put in Lieutenant Mors, dubiously. Eugène vouchsafed the rival racer a brief, contemptuous glance. It was a lean, powerfully built brute, with an astonishing reach to even the leisurely stride with which he paced the oval. A trainer would have had something to say of those lithe shoulders, and that long barrel, dwindling along the flanks, and that easy swing of haunch and swathed hock. But Eugène was not a trainer. "A fine animal," he observed, carelessly, "but there is no comparison. One has only to look at Vivandière." "Tiens!" cried Gaston, "the saddling-bell! I am off to put five louis on you gagnant, and five placé. Bonne chance, vieux!"