sale of his South African farm and stud, and observing that the sun
seldom shone, Val had said to himself: "I've absolutely got to have an
interest in life, or this country will give me the blues. Hunting's
not enough, I'll breed and I'll train." With just that extra pinch of
shrewdness and decision imparted by long residence in a new country, Val
had seen the weak point of modern breeding. They were all hypnotised by
fashion and high price. He should buy for looks, and let names go hang!
And here he was already, hypnotised by the prestige of a certain strain
of blood! Half-consciously, he thought: 'There's something in this
damned climate which makes one go round in a ring. All the same, I must
have a strain of Mayfly blood.'

In this mood he reached the Mecca of his hopes. It was one of those
quiet meetings favourable to such as wish to look into horses, rather
than into the mouths of bookmakers; and Val clung to the paddock. His
twenty years of Colonial life, divesting him of the dandyism in which he
had been bred, had left him the essential neatness of the horseman,
and given him a queer and rather blighting eye over what he called "the
silly haw-haw" of some Englishmen, the "flapping cockatoory" of
some English-women--Holly had none of that and Holly was his model.
Observant, quick, resourceful, Val went straight to the heart of a
transaction, a horse, a drink; and he was on his way to the heart of a
Mayfly filly, when a slow voice said at his elbow:

"Mr. Val Dartie? How's Mrs. Val Dartie? She's well, I hope." And he saw
beside him the Belgian he had met at his sister Imogen's.

"Prosper Profond--I met you at lunch," said the voice.

"How are you?" murmured Val.