other man, had put up its head, and kept him quietly ardent for months
past. When a man has some thing good to live for it is astonishing how
sober he becomes; and what Dartie had was really good--a three to one
chance for an autumn handicap, publicly assessed at twenty-five to one.
The old-fashioned heaven was a poor thing beside it, and his shirt
was on the daughter of Shirt-on-fire. But how much more than his shirt
depended on this granddaughter of Suspender! At that roving age of
forty-five, trying to Forsytes--and, though perhaps less distinguishable
from any other age, trying even to Darties--Montague had fixed his
current fancy on a dancer. It was no mean passion, but without money,
and a good deal of it, likely to remain a love as airy as her skirts;
and Dartie never had any money, subsisting miserably on what he could
beg or borrow from Winifred--a woman of character, who kept him because
he was the father of her children, and from a lingering admiration
for those now-dying Wardour Street good looks which in their youth
had fascinated her. She, together with anyone else who would lend him
anything, and his losses at cards and on the turf (extraordinary how
some men make a good thing out of losses!) were his whole means of
subsistence; for James was now too old and nervous to approach, and
Soames too formidably adamant. It is not too much to say that Dartie
had been living on hope for months. He had never been fond of money for
itself, had always despised the Forsytes with their investing habits,
though careful to make such use of them as he could. What he liked about
money was what it bought--personal sensation.

"No real sportsman cares for money," he would say, borrowing a 'pony' if
it was no use trying for a 'monkey.' There was something delicious about
Montague Dartie. He was, as George Forsyte said, a 'daisy.'

The morning of the Handicap dawned clear and bright, the last day of